How it works

There are many ways you can advertise yourself online – you may use a Facebook page for your business and a Twitter account. That may be sufficient for some, although you may lose out on potential customers who do not have Facebook or Twitter accounts. Unfortunately that will limit you to Facebook’s restricted templates and apps for newsletters and contact forms. Alternatively you can opt to have an ‘all in one solution’ – a website that will be linked to social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.  However, you will need to consider how much time you wish to dedicate to your online presence as an outdated website or a dead Facebook/Twitter page with no followers can be detrimental by putting your audience off.

A website requires a domain name e.g. www.hello-this-is-me.com and a web space which you ‘rent’ from a web hosting company. At whois you can find whether your preferred domain name is available. You can purchase your domain from a domain name seller or alternatively from your web-host. You can find reviews for any hosts here – reviewcenter.com. Some web designers will purchase the domain and host space for you so you do not have to do the cumbersome research to find a good web host. A detailed article about finding a host can be found here – Choosing your web hosting package.
net-value.co.uk is using the services of  siteground.com.

There are many so called platforms/software-applications you can use to design your website and input content. Many platforms can be installed after getting your web space and domain from your web-host. Some are simple to use online programs with ready-made templates, such as Web-Builder and Weebly. There are also free CMS Content Management Systems such as WordPress and Joomla that allow you to easily input your content onto a designed template. In addition, there are programs that will  allow you to design and write your page off-line such as Dreamweaver (for advanced web-designers) or Webplus (better for newbies) and upload the content when the website is ready to be published. The ones which are easier to use are the ones that use WYSIWYG which stands for ‘what you see is what you get’. With WYSIWYG platform you will be able to insert text or images without the knowledge of web-page coding.

Search engines like Google and Bing have millions of websites to search from. Search Engine Optimisation tools will help your website to reach your target audience when potential ‘customers’ search for the product, services, interest or anything else you have to offer.  Putting it bluntly, there is no point in having a website that nobody can find  unless of course you want a private website for you and your family.