A Website Owner's Beginners Guide
Some alternative titles:
Things you wish you knew before you started.
Things your website company forgot to tell you.
When they say "Don't worry, we'll take care of everything....."
It's not their fault.
Web designers are busy people who strive to
get as much done within a tight budget in fiercely competitive environment. Sometimes it works out that you don't get the best options and
occasionally you'll get things which nowadays are described as sharp practice. A little basic knowledge goes a long way so get to grips
with some of these points.
1. Own your own domain name. Take control.
Your domain name is the thing that begins
with www. and usually ends in .co.uk or .com. Go to www.who.is and enter your domain name in
the search box and click the search button. Scroll down and look for the Registrant Name. Is that you? It should be. If it is your webs
designer then you have something to think about.
Hopefully you have a good relationship with your web designer and you will be happy together, forever. The chances are that you will want to move on some day and there will be a cost involved in transferring the domain name away from your web designer. It would have been better if you had been the registrant of your own domain name in the first place.
If you are thinking of getting a new website then you can easily register your new domain name yourself. Many web hosts provide domain name registration but avoid that because your web host could turn out to be unreliable and they will charge you to move your domain name to a better host. Use a dedicated domain name registration company like www.domainmonster.com.
2. Use a good web host, check the Review Centre.
The chances are your
web design company chose your web host for you since that is part of their job.
Google takes into account a large number of factors and one of them is the "up-time" of the server where your website is stored. Reliability is a factor. Unreliable hosts have a lot of complaints and get a poor rating on the website called the Review Centre.
First you need to know who your web host is. That can be difficult. You could look on www.who.is and hunt as described above but unless you know how to spot a host name you could get stuck. Ask your web design company who your web host is. Hopefully they have placed your website with a specialist hosting company with a good reputation rather than in an unreliable server box in their bedroom.
To check the reputation of your web host go to Web Hosting Companies Reviews at www.reviewcentre.com and type the name of your web host in the box at the top of the page and click search.
Look at the star rating and the number of reviews. If the number of reviews is less that say, 20 then the star rating is not very reliable. But if the number of reviews is high and the star rating is high then relax.
Click View Item and you will see the reviews. You will also see the percentage of users who recommend them.
If you want a laugh search for Fasthosts in the search box. Notice they have a star rating of just over 1 based on more than 500 reviews. Search also for 123-Reg.
To see the best hosts go to the Web Hosting Companies category page which should appear in a breadcrumb link near the top of the review page. like this: Review Centre > News, Reference & Information Sites > Computer & Internet Sites > Web Hosting Companies.
Move the slider for Minimum Star Rating to 4. Sort by Last Reviewed: Latest First otherwise the first pages will have too many single review hosts. Ignore any with a number of reviews less than say 50.
Notice 5quidHost.co.uk have more than 500 reviews and nearly a top 5-star rating.
That is why christopherjones.biz is hosted with 5quidhost.
The website owner's beginners guide is a work in
progress so please follow @ChrisJonesBiz for updates.
Hillsborough near Belfast, County Down, Northern Ireland. Mob 07972 637 569