The Internet, like computers in general, works with numbers. When a browser such as Microsoft Explorer or Netscape goes to a Web Site it needs to know its numerical address. For example, the Internet Address of Google is 66.233.161.147. If you typed that number in to your browser address bar, you’d be taken to google.com.

An Internet Address is similar to your physical address at home. Each Internet Address has to be unique, there cannot be two 66.233.161.147’s just like there can’t be two 121 Madison Avenue’s in NYC.

Since numbers are hard for people to remember, Domain Name Servers (DNS) were established to link easy to remember character based Domain Names (such as www.google.com) and associate those names with a numeric Internet Address. So when you type www.google.com into your browser’s address bar, your browser contacts a local DNS and is returned the numeric Internet Address of the Google web site. Imagine if the Post Office were so efficient! You’d only have to write “John Smith” on an envelope and it would be delivered (of course, then there could only be one John Smith in the entire world!)

You can have a Web Site without purchasing a Domain Name and perhaps even without purchasing a Web Hosting package. You do this by hanging your web site off another web site that has purchased a Domain Name and Hosting package, for example www.acmewebsites.com/mywebsite. Another version of this is to obtain (often free) a Subdomain Name from someone who has purchased a Domain name, for example www.mywebsite.acmewebsites.com.

Both of these methods can make your Web Site address unnecessarily long and difficult to remember. They can associate your Web Site with another company whom you may not really have any association with other than the location where your Web Site resides. Often these approaches involve allowing advertising for someone else’s Web Site to appear on your Web Site which can be very distracting and is not very professional at all.

Considering that obtaining a Domain Name only costs around $20 a year and Web Hosting can be quite reasonably prices, most businesses decide to purchase a Domain name and Web Hosting package. All Web Site packages purchased from Lion’s Den Software include 1 year Domain Name Registration and 1 year Web Hosting.

Once you have a Web Site designed, you need a place for those web pages to reside. Web Site pages exist on a computer, called a Web Server, which is hooked up to the Internet. A Web Server is a specialized computer which is turned on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 52 weeks a year. Without a Web Server, your web pages would not appear on the Internet at all.

You could run your own Web Server right from your home and save the hosting fees assuming you learned how to set one up and maintain it. However, every time your local Internet connection went down, every time your local power went off (including blown fuses) and every time your Web Server crashed, your Web Site would be unavailable until you fixed the problem. Web Hosting companies provide backup power sources, redundant connections to the Internet using several vendors and have spare computer parts and spare whole computers waiting to swap in at a moments notice.

Another concern for a Web Server is security. There is literally an army of computer hackers out there trying to break in to every Web Server on the Internet and Web Hosting companies invest in all the latest security patches and gadgets and train their employees on how to protect their Web Servers from hackers. It is just not practical for the small business owner to provide this level of service for themselves.

Value. How much does it cost a year and what are you getting for that money? What is the Web Hosting company’s record for up-time?

There are many factors that determine what a Web Hosting contract costs and unfortunately, one of these is greed. When purchasing a Web Hosting contract, compare the following features:

• Space - As with anything else, more is better. As your business grows it is likely that so will your Web Site. Does the hosting package afford you ample room to grow?
• Bandwidth - Again, more is better. If you use up the monthly bandwidth allowance of your hosting contract, you could face additional charges or worse, your Web Site could be unavailable for the remainder of the month.
• Email Accounts - You definitely want to have at least one email account like yourname@yourbusinessname. If you have multiple employees, you should be able to set one email account up for each employee.
• Virus Protection - The last thing you need is to get viruses from email sent to your Web Site. Most credible Web Hosting companies offer free virus scanning on incoming emails.
• Spam Protection - While we have yet to see a spam protection product that is 100% effective, many Web Hosting companies offer some level of protection from spam.
• Reliability - What is the guaranteed up-time (the percentage that the Web Hosting company guarantees is the average time their Web Sites are available on the Internet)? Is there a backup power supply in case of power outage? Do they have more than one connection to the Internet (in case a storm or an accident brings a line down)?
• Support for CGI - CGI scripts and their brethren (Perl, PHP, JavaScript, etc.) allow your web designer to create web sites that contain guest books, surveys, email forms, updatable web pages and other “intelligent” features. Even if you don’t need this kind of power on your Web Site today, it will be more expensive to move your Web Site later on if you do need them so you should look for them when you start.

Bandwidth is the amount of information that visitors can download from your Web Site in a given time period. Most bandwidth numbers are for monthly limits. For example, if you had a small home page containing just 250 words and three pictures, just viewing that home page one time might consume 100K of bandwidth, depending on how large your pictures are.

If you had a five page Web Site and every page was exactly as large as our hypothetical home page, then one visitor visiting every page of your web site would consume 500K of bandwidth. Ten visitors viewing your entire Web Site would consume 5MB’s of your bandwidth and 100 visitors would use up 50MB’s.

Also, bandwidth is used up each time a page loads, so if one user visits all of your pages ten times, then that uses up as much bandwidth as ten visitors viewing your Web Site once.

Once your bandwidth is used up, you either have to pay for more or your Web Site no longer appears on the Internet. In this way, bandwidth is very much like cell phone minutes and paying for extra bandwidth can be as expensive as paying cell phone overage charges.

For this reason, Lion’s Den Software suggests you purchase a Web Hosting contract with a generous amount of bandwidth. Our standard plan includes 50GB’s of bandwidth which would cover over half a million visitors viewing the entire hypothetical Web Site above every month.

You should not just scan your brochure and put it online. Also, if your brochure is in PDF format, it is not necessarily a good idea to put it online in that format.

The reason for this is that search engines cannot see the text of your brochure unless it is in HTML format which is the language of web pages. The text in your brochure speaks to your company, services and products and that information will be valuable for search engines to use to properly index your site.

Another problem with scanning a brochure and putting that image into your Web Site is resolution. Your image may be so large that visitors have to scroll left and right to see it, which many users find annoying to do. Or your image might not have the clarity to be easily read on the web. While PDF images can be zoomed in and out, not everyone has a PDF viewer installed on their computer and expecting a visitor to install software on their computer in order to view your Web Site is not realistic.

Your web designer can take your brochure or other marketing materials and incorporate them into your Web Site in such a way that your content is accessible to search engines. They can capture the look and feel of your materials so that your Web Site is not only visually attractive and easy to read but also compliments your company materials.

Your existing marketing materials are a valuable source of information and ideas for your web designer. Certainly, you should supply your web designer with copies of all your materials as part of the design process for your Web Site, but simply scanning them and putting them on your Web Site will not create a professional look for your company.

At the time your contract is signed, your web designer will identify the materials you need to deliver in order for your Web Site to be designed properly. Typically, these materials may include:

• Existing marketing materials
• Printed photos or jpgs/gifs
• The text of your web pages
• Keyword list for search engines
• Desired Domain Name for your Web Site

From the time a deposit is accepted and a contract is signed to the point where your Web Site is on the Internet and available for prospective customers to see is usually about four weeks.

You can speed this process along by getting whatever “deliverables” to your web designer that you agreed to supply when your contract was signed. Delays in supplying your web designer with this necessary information as well as in delays approving sample pages will increase the amount of time your Web Site takes to create.

While each Web Site is different and custom features can greatly influence the cost of your Web Site, generally many small business Web Site can be purchased for under $1,000.

For larger Web Sites, a good rule of thumb is to assume approximately $100 for every static page and $150 for every dynamic page.

Please check our pricing page for details.

A static web page is a web page that does not change and which does not contain a form for visitors to fill out and submit to you. Most web pages are static pages because they stay the same each time you see them unless you pay a web designer to change them.

A dynamic web page is a web page that you can a) change yourself, b) changes automatically or c) contains a form for visitors to fill out and submit to you.

Most dynamic pages consist of a template page, a password protected administration page or a page editor, a viewable web page and a Web Server script.

The template page will be created by your web designer and will never be viewed directly on your web site. This page contains all of the static (unchanging) content of the dynamic page along with some codes that identify those areas of the page that are dynamic (changeable).

The administration page or page editor is also created by your web designer and is a page that only you, the Web Site’s owner, will ever see. It is protected by a password which will protect you from any unauthorized person from setting your Web Site dynamic content. You will use this web page to enter the content that will change on your dynamic web page.

The viewable page is the web page that visitors to your Web Site see. It looks identical to all your other web pages except that the content of the page may change or may perform some other function. The viewable page may change when you decide to change it (say when you have a sale) or when a content feed changes.

The script is not a web page at all but is a program that runs on your Web Server and which creates the viewable page using the template file and the information you entered into your administration page.

A content feed is a way of having your Web Site update itself without any interaction on your part. You pay a web designer a one time fee to create a dynamic page that accepts articles, news stories, recipes, tips, etc. from a content provider whom you subscribe to.

This content automatically shows up on your web site and is updated at regular intervals. Depending on the content provider you subscribe to, your web page may change monthly, weekly, daily or even every time someone visits it.

Content feeds are a popular way to keep visitors returning to your Web Site without investing a great deal of time or money keeping your Web Site up to date. Fees vary but are usually quite reasonable.

Contact Lion’s Den Software today if you are interested in establishing a content feed for your Web Site.

Lion’s Den Software works with businesses via email, mail, instant messenger and over the phone when it is not practical to do so in person. When photographical services are required, Lion’s Den Software will travel to your company to take those photos if at all practical.

Your Web Site prototypes will be accessible to you on the Internet and you can view them from any Internet connected computer. You can communicate changes back to us via email and we will update the prototype in a timely fashion.

Lion's Den Software puts packages together to give business owners an idea of what the costs will be for their Web Sites. Each package offers a price point advantage because we really want you to have the best Web Site you can get for your business.

In order to ensure that you really do get the best Web Site for your business, Lion's Den Software is willing to create a Web Site of any size for your company. If you find your needs to be in between two of our packages, rest assured that Lion's Den Software will work with you to get exactly the Web Site package that you need, regardless of whether you need 3 pages, 8 pages or 23 pages.

Working with Lion's Den Software should be a pleasure and we will make every effort to ensure your satisfaction with your new Web Site. We are so sure you will like your new Web Site that we offer a 30 day money back guarantee, less the $20 transferable Domain Name Registration fee, on all our Web Sites.

Lion's Den Software offers several different types of dynamic pages that will allow you to easily update sections of your Web Site yourself. While dynamic pages typically cost slightly more than static pages because of the added setup and programming involved, they can be a real value for the site that needs to update its content regularly.

However, we recognize that some businesses simply do not have the time to fuss with updating their Web Sites. For those businesses that wish us to, Lion's Den Software can provide regular updates for a very reasonable fee.

Please contact us for details.