Art of Jen Web Design and Development Blog - Summerville, South Carolina / Charleston, South Carolina

This post is part 5 of the “10 Things Every Business Should Know Before Starting a Website” post.

Thing #5:    Your domain name (a.k.a. URL, a.k.a. web address) Your business’ domain name can be very important in generating traffic to your website.  First of all, an easy to remember domain name can stick in your audience’s mind long after they have heard your radio spot, seen your print advertising, or heard their friends talking about your site.  Secondly - yet still just as important – the domain name you choose can be important in your site’s search engine optimization.

Your domain name not only determines your web address, but in most cases, it also determines your email address.  (If your web address is www.abc.com, your email address is usually me@abc.com).  As with web hosting, you can choose have your web designer/developer register and manage your domain name for you, but just as mentioned above under “Website copyright,” there is one precaution that you must take if you do this:  you need to ensure that your domain is registered under your company’s name, and not the name of your web designer/developer.  It is also a good idea to have your domain name information – such as the name of the registrar and the login information for their website – sent to you by the designer or developer when the domain name is purchased.  If your company does not own your domain name and is unable to contact the developer, it can be very difficult to point your domain name to a new web hosting service, where you may have a new website located, cheaper hosting rates, better service, or more functionality.  In a worst-case scenario, you could need to start over with a new domain name, which would mean that your visitors, who usually came to your website from your old address, would need to find your site again, you would need to start over with your search engine optimization, and all of your company’s email addresses would suddenly need to change.

Welcome to my first ever blog post!  I know, I know, some of you are saying “What took you so long?”  After all, I do tell all of my clients about the wonders of blogging and how most every business should do it.  Well, in my defense I must say that much like every other business, business always comes first.  But, in order to make it up to you, I am going to kick things off with a 10 day spree of blog posts entitled “10 Things Every Business Should Know Before Starting a Website” with one “Thing” every day for the next 10 days.  So those of you reading this on May 11, 2009 - come back tomorrow for post #2!

Thing #1:  Search Engine Optimization Oh no – here we go already with the big words.  For all of my non-technical friends, search engine optimization (SEO) is just a big word for techniques that a web developer uses to ensure that your website is read-able by search engines such as Google and Yahoo!.  Unfortunately, not every web designer or programmer is knowledgeable in search engine optimization.  In fact, many either only employ some SEO techniques, sacrifice SEO in favor of a cool design or animation they want to use, or simply ignore SEO altogether!  Of course business professionals know that you could have the coolest website in the world, but it would not do your company any good at all if no one can find it! Before you start your company’s website, make sure that your web designer/developer knows search engine optimization techniques.