Your Domain Name

Believe it or not this aspect of web design is often initially overlooked. What’s in a name? A lot if your business depends on it! Some thought must go into selecting a name. You want your domain name to reflect your business and business name if possible. For example, Silver Surfboards could become www.silverboards.com. Something to ask yourself - if you were to search for your business on the internet, what key words or search words would you type into a search engine like Google? Placing some of those search words in your domain name might help your exposure on the search engines.

Once you have decided on a domain name it is time to find out if it is available. You will need to search a registrar database like Active Domain to find out. Go to the web site and type in your prospective domain name in the search box provided. If your name is available you can register it immediately. In some cases you will find that someone has already registered the name, in that case try another name. You can register your domain name from one year to 100 years. A domain name is like cyber real estate - you can transfer or sell it even! Once you have registered your domain name be sure to make a note of your user ID and password. You will need these to access the domain manager and your domain account.

Hosting Your Site

Once you have a domain name registered you will need to find a place on the internet to build your web site. This is the Domain Name Server (DNS). You can purchase your own server computer and host your own site. Many large corporations, universities and colleges, and organizations do this. As a small business owner this is usually not cost effective. Your Internet Service Provider can sometimes provide server space for your web site. You can also find many web hosting companies online that will more than meet your needs. We are happy to assist you in finding the web host for your needs.

Designing Your Web Site .

Assessing Your Web Site Needs

Just what you will need in your web site depends on your type of business. You must ask yourself, "What do I want my web site to do for my business?" Do you just need a static site you can direct your customers to showcase your business? Do you need to gather information from your customers? Do you plan to sell products or services from your web site? Who are your targeted customers? Or do you simply want the site for personal use?

Building Your Web Site

Once you have decided what you want to accomplish with your web site it is time to start the process. To better serve your needs think about how you want to present your business or personal site to the world. Next we will need an idea of what you would like to see on your web pages. Grab a sheet of paper and rough out your ideas. Are you stumped for ideas? A great place to get inspiration is from the internet itself. Surf some of your favorite web pages and note the things you like about them, then put the ideas to use on your own web page by including them in your rough draft. Once you've gotten your ideas together fill out the Web Design Consultation form on the Contact Page and send it to BB Media Web Design. We will get back to you with our Web Design Proposal for your approval. That's all there is to it! Together we can design a site that will highlight your business and bring you customers.

Things to think about when drawing your rough draft:

• Title: what do you want your page to be called? Your title will be used to make the meta tags used by search engines to find your site on the internet.
• Header: think about what you would like to see in your header. Would you like to use graphics such as your logo or personal pictures? Maybe you don't want any graphics at all in your header; let us know.
• Buttons: to navigate through your site will have inter-page hyperlinks. Do you have any preference where you would like to place your navigation buttons? Maybe you would like some custom buttons or special buttons downloaded from the internet to place on your pages.
• Background: colored, photograph, or textured? Let us know what your favorite colors are, or if you have any color preference at all. Colors are very important and can convey the feeling of your web site. We can include a textured background for your site that will add impact to your pages from our extensive background collection, or we can also make you a custom background for a small additional fee (custom graphic fee).
• Graphics: express yourself with personal photos or drawings. The web package includes three scanned graphics per page for the introductory price. You can send us your photographs or e-mail us your digital images for placement on your web page. Additional photos can be scanned for an additional fee. We can also place custom or animated graphics that we design or internet ready gifs (animated or not) for you on your pages. All graphics will be in the jpeg or gif format, and compressed with an eye towards faster download times. There is nothing more irritating when surfing the internet than huge graphic files that take forever to download. We will strive for the delicate balance of quality and small file size.
• Proofed Text: what do you want to say? What purpose do you want your web pages to serve? Is this going to be a personal web site about your hobbies, family, opinions, artwork or literary achievements? Or will you use this site to advertise your business? For the introductory price you will get up to 400 words per page (provided by you, as you know your business best of all). We can make them longer if needed for additional fees. We can format the pages in your favorite font, but be aware that the user's browser and computer dictates how your font will display. Using common fonts will such as Ariel or Times New Roman will alleviate this problem. We can discuss this further when the time comes.
• Hit Counters: check out how many people visit your site. If you want we will provide a home page hit counter of your choice from a popular internet source.

NOTICE: We reserve the right to refuse our service for web sites that we consider inappropriate or objectionable.