Things You Need - To Have a Website

People ask me this all the time!

First of all, most people think if they put a website up people will be buying from them like crazy within a few days. That is not going to happen! If this is what you expect, perhaps you shouldn't invest in a website.

What's really going to happen, is your website is going to be lost in a sea of millions of websites out there. What you need to think instead, is of your website as a "tool, or online salesman, and even your Internet store " for marketing. It's a wonderful tool to place images and wording about whatever products, services, causes, or maybe personal or community or hometown info, or store, etc. that you want available to the world to view. But, truth is, if you don't do some types of advertising, not many will find it.

Advertising can be done in search engines like Google and Yahoo, and many others. Advertising can be done on posted business cards, exchanging links with other websites, hometown and Internet bulletin boards, flyers, snail mailing, personal websites like "My Space" or "Facebook", and blogs. And especially for classifieds in magazines and newspapers, a website is a fantastic tool for that, as you can put the images and wording on your website, that you can not afford to have in your classified ad. Then in your classifieds put some catchy wording or feature product (to create curiosity) and your URL in your ads, to get people to come to your website for more information.

Basically, you need five things to have a website and make it useful.

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Webhosts

I work with and have the software to work with "Linux Hosting". This is also often the more economical priced and most common used webhosting packages out there, usually using the popular Apache server systems.

Before I recommend some webhosts that my clients are using, I would like to touch a few points. There are thousand of webhost servers all over the world most are good, some are scary. A lot of businesses come and go in this area, so better to go with a webhost that is well established and has a larger number of users, they are more likely to stay in business and keep their customers happy. If you want to find out about some of them you can Google using the keywords: "webhost", "webhosting". You can find many listed on TopHosts.com, check out the "Linux Hosting" section there.

All of my clients are using what is affordable for a budget, but will give them the most in their webhosting package for the money. To save money, they go with paying annual fees (yearly), instead of higher priced monthly fees. And we try to get as much band width and webspace as possible for the money. "Band width" has to do with how much uploading and downloading is done from your website by yourself, webmasters, and the visitors. If you want to run some videos on your website, Band width is even more important.

If you have low band width, your webhost will allow error images to appear on your website to replace the images you want your clients to see, if the band width for the month is exceeded. So, you want to avoid that by having higher band width.

Below I have listed some webhosts my clients are using and having pretty good luck with. Up-time is good on these webhosts, which means the website are working most of the time, with just occasional problems. Each of these webhosts have well over 100,000 users, so are more likely to stay in business. I also recommend them just based on my own experience working with them.

Most of these webhosts will even include at least one domain name hosting (if not more) for no extra charge as a part of their hosting package. They cost less then $10 a month and they also allow you to have several more then one website within same webhosting package for no additional charge, other than for additional domain names. They also have shopping carts available.

Click on ad to go to their website	Netfirms - Several of my clients like this webhost. It's based out of Canada. I have this website hosted by them myself. Nice control panel to work with, saves me time working with it, which in turn saves my clients some money too. I usually recommend my client to take out their "Netfirms Advantage™" web hosting package which is less than $10.00 a month. It includes two domain names at no extra cost if you want them. And a nice 2,000GB of monthly band width, and 250GB of storage room, you could even backup file storage if you get an FTP program. You can also have as many websites as room provides. When you take out one year paid in advance, then you get free setup. They have Webmail too, so you can check your email online traveling, if you have access to a computer.
Click on ad to go to their website	Ipower - Some of my clients are using this webhost that is based in USA. I like working with them. They had been converting over to a new control panel which is really nice, but there were a few problems in 2008 that they had to work out with the conversion. But my experience with them now has been very good. I like working with their new control panel. The price is hard to beat on their package called "Ipower Pro Plan" at $7.95 a month paid for a year. This package has unlimited storage space, and unlimited band width, which is fantastic. It's often on sale for less than that, sometimes as low as $5.95 a month. When on sale, you can get a years worth of website hosting with including one domain name hosting for less then $75. Money wise, this is probably one of the best packages with the most in it, for the money that my clients are using. When on sale, you might want to consider taking it out for 2 years so you can get the sale price that long.
If you click the above ad to take out a webhosting package, and put in promo code EATNDBEEF you will get 10% more bonus web space* to your webhosting package. *This code does not apply to non-profits.	Dreamhost.com - I have been with this webhost myself a few years, for a project I started and haven't finished yet. Located in USA, it has good up-time. I use to find the control panel a little more time consuming to use then the first two I mentioned, but recent upgrade has that improved a lot. Otherwise there are a lot of nice available features for the money if needed. Sometimes on holidays, they run some pretty good specials on their webhosting packages. The hosting package varies in price from about $11 a month down to $6 a month, depending on how long a period you pay for in advance. If you pay for at least a year in advance, a $50 setup fee is waived. They allow you to take out up to 10 years of hosting, including a domain name. Personally, I would limit myself to 2 yrs at the most. As sometimes webhosts come and go in a changing world. But the longer you take out the package, the cheaper the price is by the month/year. And if you are non-profit and can provide them with IRS-issued 501(c)(3) determination letter to qualify before taking out your webhosting package, they will host your website for FREE!
	Hostgator.com - I don't have any clients currently with this webhost, but it seems to be a popular one with over 9 million websites. They claim to be one of the top 10 largest webhosts. I have contacted their tech support and was very pleased with the reply, it was prompt and professional. A faster reply then the above webhosts Tech Supports. The rates are common man user friendly with lots of similar to options to the above webhosts. Their $4.95 a month "Hatchling" package could suit many with need of just 1 domain name, and includes unlimited space and bandwidth, which is very nice to have both those features! If you wanted more then one website to share the same package, and a few extra features, their "Baby" package at $7.95 a month would suit most small businesses. They have a 99.9% uptime guarantee. It looks like it would be worth a try, I myself would not be afraid to try them for a webhost. They do not include the domain name and hosting but domain name can be taken other places. If you would like to use this webhost, I can recommend a place to get a domain name reasonable.
	EZ-Web-Hosting.com - None of my clients have signed up with this one yet. But I know a group that is, and they seem to be happy with the service. They do host domain names for less then $10 a year. Their "Economy" package for less then $6.50 a month if paid for a year with unlimited space and band width. Plus for a little higher fee they will charge on your credit card monthly. This package should work well for those who only need to use one domain name (domain name costs extra). There are a lot of nice options with their hosting package, including daily backups. There are other nice stepup packages available too.

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Copyright on your website

It appears it's okay to put the Copyright symbol © on your website, if you want it there. But that only offers some very limited protection that isn't worth a lot. Your rights would likely be more symbolic then sue effective, if not officially registered with the U.S. Copyright Office. However, having a copyright notice on your website, even though not registered, may keep some people from duplicating what you have on your website. But, for full copyright protection and to have the right to sue, you do need to register your website with the U.S. Copyright Office for that type of protection.

Of course there are many elements to a website that need to be covered. As example if you have me design the website from scratch, you should have me sign an agreement that you can have copyright rights to my work used on your website. Any photos, templates, written material, or other material that are public domain or done by an individual you do not have agreement with in writing for copyright, or have license to use, will not be included in your rights on the copyright.

If you do want to register for copyright protection, if your website consists primarily of textual material that you want to protect, you will need to use Form TX. If your website contains a bunch of images of graphics which you own and want to protect, then you will want to use Form VA. They will likely require a full copy of your website on a CD or DVD, with your application, which I could provide for you. There are many websites that explain about this, use keywords like "copyright website" in major search engines (example: Google), to find out more information about Copyright.

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Rate and Terms of Service

My fee is currently $14 an hour (subject to changes). I believe, when you compare with other webmaster's fees, you will find my fees are very reasonable and very likely half or less, of the going rate found locally and on the Internet.

This is what most of my clients and I have for an agreement:

1. I do not provide domain names nor webhosting packages. I recommend my clients to be lease owners of their own domain names and webhosting packages. And pay for the service with their own credit card to save money by not paying me monthly fees to do so.
   
   But if this is confusing to setup for you, and so that you don't buy services you don't really need, as a credit card merchant myself, I'm willing to assist a client to setup their own domain name and webhosting package for no charge, if they want me to also be their webmaster. Email me for details on how I can assist you with this setup.
   
   After setup, you are owner and responsible to keep up your payments for the domain name and your webhosting package with your webhosting provider. And you will receive all email notices about your domain name and webhosting package. You can forward a copy to me if you need help understanding or if there is information I might need as your webmaster.
   
   
2. Clients will provide to me their website login/FTP password information, so I can work on their websites.
   
   
3. Clients usually send to me by email, snail mail, or provide URL of material (wording, images, etc.) they want on their websites.
   
   
4. If a client needs assistance with writing text or story lines for their website, I can assist at my hourly rate, if the client will give me a list of subjects points to write into story line. I will then post to their website and client can read over and request changes/ideas/updates as needed.
   
   
5. Clients are responsible for the content on their websites. And agree not to provide me with material that they have harvested from other websites without permission, or in violation of copywriter laws.
   
   
6. Clients agree to have my business name/URL and email contact on at least the bottom of Home or Index page of their website.
   
   
7. Clients do their own proof reading to save money by not paying me to do so by the hour. This also helps to assure them the website content is suitable to their needs, when they personally review the work.
   
   
8. If a change, correction, or update is needed, I will login time to the nearest 5 minutes, with a minimum of at least 5 minutes to be charged.
   
   
9. If I originally made an error on a webpage from directions sent me, I will fix the error no charge. If an website owners error to correct, I will login time to the nearest 5 minutes.
   
   
10. I do not make a habit of answering the door, phone, or leaving a project without logging my time to the nearest 5 minutes. That way my clients are not being charged for time when I'm required to do something else. These moments "away" from a project, will also show on my detailed billing.
    
    
11. When email or letter request come in for updates, I place the request on my "turn list". I try not to be behind more then a day or two on my "turn list", and often times I can get to an update on same day, just depending on circumstances at the time. I will send an email notice when an update has been posted to the website.
    
    
12. At times there maybe additional charges for templates, scripts, images, software, licenses, etc. that your website or you may require.
    
    
13. I have purchased rights for licenses to use certain common used software, templates, scripts, and images to use on my clients websites. Should a client dismiss me from being their webmaster, some of these items may have to be removed from the clients website, if the terms of my licenses require that.
    
    
14. If services discontinue between a client and myself, I will provide to the client his/her login and password information for their website(s) and domain name(s), if I have that information. The client will agree to allow me to remove scripts, images, software, etc. that I have license to use on their website as long as I'm their webmaster, or the client will agree to purchase rights/license from the providing vender if they wish to have those items remain in use on their website.
    
    
15. If a client wants to move on to another webmaster for some reason. Or if I need to discontinue providing services to a client for some reason. Lets politely do each other the common courtesy of a two week notice if possible. Of course sudden injury, sickness, and/or death could interfere with this agreement.

Please contact me if you have any questions or would like to see some of my work.

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The Basic 5

The below tips in this section will work with cattle, dogs, cats and other pets, although you may only want to use one or two of your best "side shots".

For my clients who have horses "For Sale", I recommend you try to shot for the "Basic 5" photos of each of your horses you have "For Sale". Do not cut off body parts, such as ears or legs. Try to avoid cluttered background, or a background that blends in with the same color of the horse. Having a helper to take pictures is a big help, hard to get these type of "selling shots" without help. Brush any mud or dirt off your horse.

Here are some good examples of the "Basic 5" pictures to have me put on your website. It took about 40-45 shots to get these 5 better ones. Nice thing with digital cameras now days, you don't have to by a bunch of film:

In most cases, it's important to represent your horse the way it is but in it's better clear/clean pictures. That way your buyers may want to come back, or may recommend your horses to friends for future sales.