Website Infrastructure Part One

I hope you enjoyed your holidays. Sorry, I have not been able to write for a while, but now I am back to regular postings.

Infrastructure of your website is a topic that can easily replace sleeping pills, but it is a necessary topic. If you made a diagram or blueprint of what you want your website to do, figuring out what you need will be much easier.

I am sure you have heard ad nausem that "The Money is in the List", so one thing every website needs is an "Opt-In List"form . You can try to design one or have it built for you, or buy it from a service, but it is an absolute necessity. Without any easy way for your visitors to opt in, you can't build a list.

Many websites have chosen a double opt in method. This is where you have the person furnish their e-mail address and other information, and your website sends them a confirming e-mail with a link for them to click on and confirm their information. This is essential for avoiding spam filters and other spam based problems.

In addition, when you send out a mailing to your list, you want those people to look forward to receiving and reading your message. It is a tremendous waste of resources to "e-mail blast" the world! Not to mention a source of potential trouble and problems, that you do not need.

One way to entice people to opt in to your list is to offer them something of value as a "reward" for opting in. Make sure that you are really giving them true value and useful information. This is your big chance to make a great first impression and establish a positive impression in their mind. You will not get a second chance, so carefully consider what you are giving them.

This is just the start of what you must do. Once they join your list, your first mailing must motivate them to action. Then if they take you up on your offer, you need a way to deliver to the item, whether it is a physical product or a "digital" product. If you really want to make money, then once they make that first purchase, you must follow up with another higher priced offer. There are many studies you can read up on, that will tell you that when a person has bought something from you, they are more likely to buy again, if given an opportunity to do so.

What does all that have to do with "Infrastructure"? I am glad you asked, that will bring use to the topic of our next post.........."AUTORESPONDERS".

How to Decide on Building Your Website or Having It Built for You

In making your decision, you also need a "blueprint" for your website. This is the infrastructure of your website. The blueprint is a diagram of all the parts of your website, and how each page is linked to each other and to the site map.

If you have not all ready decided what your website will be used for, now is the time to make your final decision. Will it be for business (either online only or both on and off line?) or personal use?

You should have decided on the domain name for your website and if you can afford to do so, I recommend purchasing yourdomain.com, yourdomain.net, yourdomain.org and yourdomain.biz.

This will enable you to have as much control as possible of yourdomain and prevent other people from using a variant of yourdomain.com that you have not purchased and registered. It is extremely important that you register your domain for as many years as possible, so the search engines take your website seriously, when they find it. (Much more about that another time). But for now, if you can register your domains for 5 years or more do so. Most hosting and domain registration companies will let you register your domain for a maximum of 10 years. Another reason to do this now, is to lock in the price for the registration for as long as you can.

Remember that many hosting companies will allow you to register a domain name as part of the purchase price for your hosting package.

By now you should have checked out some of the major web hosting companies and compared the "packages" and tools they offer to see what best meets your needs. This will enable you to decide if the hosting company has everything you need, or will you need to purchase anything else to build your website.

As I said in an earlier post, I use several different hosting companies for my websites. But I recommend for each "group" of your domains, ( ie yourdomain.com, .net, etc) you use one hosting company. This will prevent things from becoming overally complicated.

I highly recommend the hosting service 1and1.com. They have a comprehensive choice of "packages" to meet all your needs, whether you need a very basic website or you need something very intricate and detailed or anything in between. They also have a large choice of downloadable items to assist you in building your website.

But, now let's discuss those of you who have hardily any money or no money at all. There are several free hosting services, but you will have to tolerate their advertisements on your website, which may be for websites that are in direct competition with you. But even if you have to go that route, you will at least have your website up and running. But, you will still have to purchase your own domain, if you want to control it's destiny. Even if you can only afford to register your own domain for one year, it is the smart thing to do.

In my next post, I will discuss more about the necessary "infrastructure" of your website. There is a lot of things that you need to learn about "infrastruture", but do not be overwhelmed, it will all come together for you.