In order to host your own website, you need an active internet connection and a database that is accessible from the internet that holds your website content. Many would argue that there are many more requirements, but this is basically all that is needed for someone to view your website. Now, the reliability, accessibility, and quality of the viewing experience can be greatly enhanced by adding in some more elements.

• If you are using a residential internet connection, chances are your IP (Internet Protocol) address is not static, which means it can change. So if I know the IP address of your website today, I can access it. However, if it was to expire tonight and I try to access it again tomorrow, I will not be able to if the address was changed by the ISP (Internet Service Provider). This happens frequently without the knowledge of the dynamic (changing) host.

• In addition, download speeds on consumer-grade lines are typically quite high, but the upload speeds are painfully slow, so if you have any pictures on your website, it will take quite some time for the page to load. This is frustrating for today’s internet browser. We are accustomed to pages that load very quickly, so when we come across a slow-loading page, we simply leave and find another page that doesn’t make us wait. It’s sad but true.

• Another factor to consider is the reliability of the website. If you are hosting a website at home or a place of business, chances are you have the website loading from a single computer, and if you’re smart, you will have a UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) in case the power goes out. However, computers are known to crash and consumer-grade UPS’s backup power only lasts a couple of minutes. If your computer crashes or the power goes out for longer than your UPS can last, your website is inaccessible.

If you are determined to host your own website versus hiring a service provider and wish to maintain the level of reliability, accessibility, and quality that you would get, be ready to fork out some serious cash. You would need to purchase several static IP addresses, high upload bandwidth, backup generators, redundant servers, and networking equipment, and be ready to troubleshoot at a moment’s notice, night or day.

If you are still determined to host your own website but plan to do something simple like a little blog that only your family and friends will read, it’s still cheaper to use a blog-hosting service. If you are not concerned with reliability or quality, but you are with accessibility, you can register for a dynamic DNS address. This will give you a generic website name that will never change and stays current with your dynamic IP address. Your website will most likely be something like someothercompany.yourwebsite.com instead of www.yourwebsite.com or something along those lines.

If you’ve come to realize that using a web hosting service is in your best interest, there are a myriad of companies out there that provide web hosting. However, make sure you do your homework. There are a bunch of “companies” run by teenagers out of their basements, and other questionable organizations that may give you high upload speed, but lack redundancy or outage protection, or lacking in some other essential element. Do your research and choose a reputable company that has what it takes to host your website the way it should be. Global IT Communications is a premier web hosting provider.

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• Description: The site description is very important; in order to ensure the best results, make sure you try to not surpass the proper amount of characters (currently 160).
• The description is what is shown on all search engines when your site comes up; pack it full of rich content, so that it hooks the reader in.
• Make sure all tags, headers, and descriptions contain your keywords. This is one of the things search engines will be looking for.
• The website must be consistently updated.
• A website that is rich with relevant, and new content will be held at a higher value and receive better rankings. The site map is what Google uses to navigate through your website and also to see when the most recent update was made.  If you have a clean site map and are consistently making updates, higher rankings will be received.
• Create links to your social media pages on your site, it gives more exposure and is also more user-friendly.
• More exposure will increase credibility and improve your networking.
• Add blogs and forums to your website to increase value and ranking.
• Avoid duplicate content; Google will discredit you for having any.
• Make use of tracking codes, these allow you to see the progress of your site.

• How many people are frequenting your website?
• How long are people staying on your site?
• What specifically are the viewer’s looking at?

Global IT Communications is a premier SEO company.

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 1. Content Rich

Make sure all the content within your website holds value. Avoid any fluff that will lose the people’s interest. Keep them engaged with rich content. They came to your site looking for answers, so give them and make it easy to follow.  Also, Google will place a higher ranking for your site if it contains rich and relevant content, allowing you to jump up in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

 2. Short & to the Point

According to an article written by Jakob Nielsen, a leading web usability consultant, the average user spends anywhere from 10 seconds to slightly under a minute of time on any given webpage.  So that means within 60 seconds, your average person will have already lost interest in your site if you cannot give them what they need within that time.  People are looking for quick solutions to their problems, so do not fill your site with large sums of filler information that will cause people to lose interest in what they are reading, and your website.  Avoid any duplicate content on your site.  Still keep it content-rich, however, remember: short and to the point.

 3. User Friendly

Not until recently has the average person become more tech-savvy. However, there are a large number of people in the world who are still getting the hang of it.  Do not over complicate your site, frustrating users with all the bells and whistles.  Virtually hold their hand and walk them through the site. Show them the way through simple and clean navigation menus.  Make it easy to navigate through your website. Be careful though, this may help increase the 60-second gap you have to grab the attention of your viewer.

 4. Online Marketing/SEO

Your website will not publicize itself, so an effort must be made to expand your presence on the World Wide Web.  Register in online directories, create social media sites for your website and optimize your site.  In order to rise in the SERPs, you must follow the guidelines that Google sets.  Make sure your site is content-rich and that it is filled with keywords that have high KEI (Key Word Effectiveness).

 5. Professionalism

Your website is a representation of your business and/or yourself.  With that being said, make sure that it is clean and presentable.  Show your viewer that you deserve their time and that you have something to offer.

 6.Up to Date

A very important part of having a successful website is up-to-date content.  You can have the richest, short-to-the-point, and clean site, but if the information has not been updated in over a year, it can toss all credibility and value out the window.  Google uses the site map of websites to see when the site was last updated.  If Google finds an outdated site with old information that it has already seen before, your ranking in the SERPs will decrease.

 7. Monitor Your Site

Stay on top of your progress.  Constantly be monitoring your site’s success or lack thereof.  There are useful tools, such as Google Analytics, which allow you to check how many people are frequenting your site, what exactly they are looking at, and how long they stay on your page.  Using these tools, you can see what areas of your site may need some improvement.

 8. Do it Right, Do it Once

If you do not have a background in web design, are just looking to save your money, and have your site designed as quickly, cheaply, and easiest as possible, stop.  Do not waste your time doing so because eventually you will have to put in the time and money, and you will already be a long way behind.  Having a clean, well-designed website is important for your online presence.  Outsource to professional web designers, people who will take the time to do it right, so that you only have to do it once. Spend that little extra cash, because, in the long run, the returns on your investment will be worth it.

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