Choosing the right company or team before you have your web site designed.

Some web companies consist of individuals or teams of people with only one skill set. This skill set is usually web site design. By this we mean individuals or teams who can make a site look visually appealing without any consideration for security, search engine rankings, who visits your site and where/why they leave and sometimes even navigation of your site.

While the look of your site is important, there are also a number of technical considerations to ensure you gain maximum benefits from a web site. There is no point having a nice looking web site if no one can find it on the Internet and you have no idea about how many visitors your site receives.

A web designer should not be responsible for the technical tasks and likewise the technical team should not be responsible for the visual design of your site. There should also be a search engine optimisation/online marketing person in the team.

Typically a web design company will tell you that you must host your web site on their servers for maximum returns. They neglect to inform you that the maximum returns are not for you the customer but for the web design company itself in terms of revenue gathering.

If your design company use a proprietary system that allows you to make updates to your web site, then you will essentially be stuck with your company for ever. Make sure your design company use an open source system that can be moved from one server to another.

An example of the need to move will be if your web design company cease to exist, prices are raised high due to the monopoly or you become unhappy with the customer services provided.

Often Web design companies resell hosting space on behalf of a dedicated web hosting company and usually at a greater price than you could pay directly for the service from the hosting company. If this is the case, be aware that there could be long delays in gaining customer support – if any support at all. Many resellers offer no or very little technical support.

The same is true for your domain name. Many web design companies offer to register your domain name so you do not have to worry about the technical issues. If you can read and write English then there are no technical issues except maybe writing the name of the server where your web site is at. Something like ns3.netmania.co.nz . Reputable hosting companies have this information available on their web site or freely offer the information.

Some companies whom register your domain name will add their contact details to your domain name in the technical, and admin fields. But some will also add their details to the registrant (domain name owner) field. Hence you will not own your company domain name.

To check your .nz domain name visit http://www.dnc.org.nz . If you do not own your own domain name our advise is to talk with the company that registered your domain name first. If you can not solve the issue there, there are solutions at the www.dnc.org.nz web site.

Trim your online budget today.

The recession is making companies look at reducing their expenses. Unfortunately over the years there have been many incompetent web companies in New Zealand charging for ineffective services.

Below is a list of some suggestions that will enable you to reduce your costs immediately.

1. 1. If you are paying more than $NZ35.00 (ex gst) per annum for your .nz domain or more than $20.00 per annum for your .com you are paying too much.
2. If you are paying more than $20.00 per month for Web Hosting you are paying too much.
3.  If you are paying for a new email address to be added you have the wrong hosting company.
4. Do you pay license fees for FTP software. There are plenty of free options such as FileZilla FTP that are equal or better than the commercial equivalents.
5. Online advertising campaigns can be costly and inefficient if they are not carefully analysed. Google provide detailed analysis of your campaigns as does FaceBook.com.
6. If you are paying your web developer and hourly rate for site modifications you are being taken advantage of.
7. If you are paying more than $40 per hour for a web developer – it is time to source a new developer.
8.  There is no need to spend thousands of dollars on developing and maintaining a new e-commerce web site. There are many free options to create e-commerce web sites. The cost is in customising the site to your organisation

.TEL domain name great for businesses of any size

A new domain name .TEL (Acronym for telephone) was launched around the world. Its popularity is yet to be known. But there are a great many benefits for organisations to utilise a new .tel domain even if your organisation has no web site or any immediate plans for a web site.

.TEL is like an online address book for your organisation. You do not need to have a web designer or a web host, you only fill in the form of your organisations contact details. Look at our company .TEL site http://www.netmania.tel .

You can then assign each staff member with their own pages within your organisations .TEL address.

.TEL is read by all search engines, with minimal set up and ongoing costs it is a genuine alternative to a web site as customers will find your contacts details via the Internet search engines.

.TEL is a good example of the limited options made available in the New Zealand by Internet companies based on their expected Return on Investment and not what is in their customers best interest. To date there is only one Internet company in New Zealand offering .TEL domain names.