Websites, Intranets and Ramblings
Domain Names
Whether your considering an in-house intranet, or public website; it pays to carefully consider your domain name options.
If you're just starting out, try to find a short, easy to spell and memorable domain name. Try to be creative.
I recently spent 2 days trying to find an available domain name for my Show Dog Breeder websites (hey, I'm fussy). After exhausting every combination of words containing "Dog" or "Pet",
I finally realized that I was getting nowhere and should consider an alternative like "Canine" or "K9".
I ended up, happily, with K9Icon.com; a short, easy to spell and memorable name.
Domain names with eight characters or less are considered the holy grail of domain names.
I am not a fan of dashes or alphabet alternatives like z's used in place of s's in domain names, unless of course your company name is spelled the same way.
Abbreviating long company names for shorter domain names are probably not going to help your visitors locate your website easily.
If you already have a domain name, consider purchasing other top-level domains as well (i.g. .net and .org).
Subdomains
It's important to remember that you are not limited to the "www" in
www.yourname.com.
Let's say your restaurant manager updates the daily specials online. She could log into
menu.your-restaurant.com to update the daiily specials while
you're checking your email at
mail.your-restaurant.com. You could now limit your website visitors to view only the pages in
www.your-restaurant.com.
When you purchased your domain name, you actually purchased an unlimited number of subdomains. Each one capable of holding different web pages
for different uses and each one configurable for different security levels. By simply adding a subdomain with "menu" or "mail", you have extended your domain name's
use. Although each new subdomain costs you nothing, you should still take time to plan them out so you don't have to reconfigure them later.
For both security and departmentalization reasons, the above naming conventions are ideal.
Hosting
You normally get what you pay for. You can host your website for as little as $5 per month. The problem is your website will most likely be on the same physical server (computer) as a thousand other websites.
This will greatly degrade the efficiency of your website's page loading. Sometimes the degradation is so severe that visitors may leave your site before your home page even loads.
Large website applications or some Flash based sites are even more affected by hosting. Loading a static page versus a dynamic page which must read a database, perform calculations or display animation will be even more affected.
Always do a little research before hosting your site. Just because your website designer can host your site doesn't mean they are qaulifed to manage a server on a busy network. In the dentistry field, dentists don't normally perform gum surgery; this is a seperate field. Keep in mind, great designers are not necessarily the best people to host your site. Conversely, hosting companies are not usually the best website designers.
Website Programming
Your website or intranet's success may also depend on less obvious factors. A website written from a template that is bloated with elements and code not pertaining to your line of business is less than ideal.
Efficient websites are those written, at the very least, for your type of business. They should only contain code and/or procedures your site actually needs.
Another common mistake is the use of high-level languages for enterpise use to write websites. Although these languages and applications make it easy for your website developer, the
results are usually less-than efficient in the areas of speed. There are still a considerably large number of dial-up users out there. Almost all website developers are utilizing high-speed connections and
few test for those 20 second page loads that will kill-off your website visitors.
Graphics
Good logo design and page graphics will reflect the personality for the message you wish to convey. Your logo should be clean and easy to reproduce on various types and sizes of media.
Well laid out graphics will also help quide users and visitors to key areas of your page through effective use of interface design.
Photographic images should be in a jpeg format, while line-art should be in a gif format. Good designers will use software like Photoshop to optimize size vs. image quality for each page.
Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization is often carelessly overlooked during design and development. Everything from page titles, site maps, meta tags, page content, etc.. have to be considered by your developer.
This is one area of website management you should learn. There are numerous sites on the internet that make SEO easy to understand. Remember, no one will ever care about your business as much as you do.
Take the time to at understand the basics of SEO, it will pay-off in the long run.
Some developers favor Flash websites while others do not; claiming Flash is not SEO friendly and page display is slow. Remember, consider your options before you hire you're website developer and don't be to anxious to hire the
first one you talk to.