The Galleria Hosting offers economical web hosting

The Galleria Hosting offers economical web hosting.

You have come to the right place because the Galleria Hosting offers a an economical solution to people who want to pay for only what they use from a web host.

So you want a web presence?
How do I start you ask.

At Galleria Hosting we understand just how confusing that can be ... so let us give you a little information that will allow you to make the choices that are best for your situation.

To get started check out the following sections that provide information to help you understand the basics about web sites and web hosting.

General General information to get you acquainted with the Internet.
Domain Names Guide to choosing your unique identity on the web.
Emails Emails (letters using the internet as the delivery system) are one of the primary uses for communication with customers, co-workers, family and friends.
Building your web site After selecting a host for your site on the web, you will need to create your web site. Since there are many different options, your selection will depend on factor such as your budget and/or your personal and staffing resources.

General

What is a Web Site?

In general, it is a place on the Internet that can be used to present something to the Internet audience. It is only a tiny portion of the huge Internet; a global network connecting millions and decentralizing by design. With a web site, you will be able to give present information about your company to your clients or on a personal scale to present yourself. A web site is much like a book to be found in the largest library in the world. That is why it is important to make web site attractive so users would continue reading yoweb siteite just like a book and their attention would be captured.

Why do I need a Website?

A website is like a necessity in today's society. Millions of new users are connecting to the Internet from any part of the world at any time. People use the Web to do almost everything, including banking, shopping, and researching. Not only is it quick, convenient and easy, but it is always a changing environment. Newly updated sites always appear and there are always new things to explore on the Internet because of its comprehensiveness.

A website is like a phone number, it is the first place people look before they do business with your company. If they don't find you, they will then find your competitors. A website could present vital company information to the prospective client. Almost everyone can be a competitor now, whether you are a multimillion dollar company or several hundred, visitors will base their judgment on the design of the website. Thus, there are endless opportunities on the Internet.

What can a Web site do for me?

A website is a presentation tool used by many people for a variety of useful tasks including:

Providing support to your clients by providing online chat support or online documentation.

Providing press releases about your company. The first place people usually expect that information (especially shareholders) would be from the company's website.

Selling products online to people around the world at any time of day. This can help increase your name recognition, while at the same time increasing sales with low overhead.

Receiving feedback and comments from your users. The easiest way for people to submit comments is through a website. No paper or postage is necessary. It is instant!

Domain Names

Choosing and registering a domain name for your website Your initial step is choosing a domain name to suit your personal or business needs. Your domain name will be your web address as well as your email address. Many domain names are being registered every day on a first come, first served basis so, it is important to register your name as soon as possible so that you will not lose it.

A domain name will look like business.com. It:

is your unique identity on the web
is your Internet brand name
can include letters, numbers and hyphens
should be easy to remember
cannot start or end with a hyphen
ends with an extension like .com, .net or .org, can be up to 67 characters, including the .com, .net, .org, .biz and .info extension

Choosing Domain Names

To check if a Domain name is taken or not, use the search tool located below called Domain Names. If your desired .com domain is taken, don't forget that you can also try different extensions. You might want to play with the name a bit to see of you can come up with some combination using dashes (-) or underscores (_). It seems to be the opinion of experts in the branding field that doing your best to get a .com address is most desirable.

Registering Domain Names

Each domain name is registered with a domain registrar. All web hosting providers have also established a relationship with one or more accredited domain registrars and will submit your registration on your behalf. Registering a domain through a web hosting provider saves you the hassle of choosing a Domain Registrar. We suggest in your registration that you maintain the control over your domains. To often a hosting company or ISP will register for you and should you decide to move from one registrar to another it is more difficult if you are not in total control. You might also want to consider the registrars are very reluctant to give you up as a client should you decide to move to a different registrar ... so choose wisely.

Cost of Domain Names

Typically you will pay $10 to $35 per domain name for one year of usage rights. You pay that amount per year thereafter as you require. All Domain Registrars have different levels of customer and technical service and service offerings. You must decide on which Registrar to trust with your domain name.

Emails

Get professional, personalized emails
Emails are one of the primary uses of the internet as it is means of communication with customers, co-workers, family and friends. If you don't have your own website yet, then you're probably using the email of your Internet Service Provider or free web email such as MSN Hotmail (for example, example@hotmail.com).

Disadvantages of using ISP or free web based emails:

Inconvenient: you have to change addresses if you change your ISP.
Unprofessional: it shows that you haven't taken the time to set your business up on the Internet.
Not Personalized: people in your company share an address.

Getting your own personalized email account is quite simple. As soon as you set up your domain name and it spreads across the Internet, you will be able to set up and use your own email accounts. Our Control Center the tool that you will use to administer your website will make it easy for you to set up personalized email addresses for everyone in your company such as suzieQ@yourcompany.com or sales@yourcompany.com.

Building your website

Tailor it to meet your needs!
After selecting a host for your site on the web, you will need to create your website. Since there are many different options, your selection will depend on factors such as your budget and/or your personal and staffing resources.

Website Development Options

Hire a company that designs websites.

Although this option can give you a complete solution, it is very likely to be the most expensive option.

Purchase a software application/editor.

There are many "What You See Is What You Get" (WYSIWYG) webpage editors on the market like Microsoft FrontPage, Adobe GoLive, Macromedia DreamWeaver and alot more. These editors typically have pre-built templates and themes that you can use to quickly create a website. These programs functionality allows a non-programmer to develop a website through dialogue boxes, wizards, and drop and drag features quickly and in a convenient way. The software will contain help documentation and there are many online resources and books out there to help you in website design.

The downside to this option is you get quite a lot of redundent code that can slow your site down.

Learn HTML programming and code your own website.

Many people also choose to learn HTML (hypertext markup language) and code their own website. On learning it, you will gain the most control over your site design, but there will be a learning curve which may or may not fit in with your website launch date.

HTML is not hard to learn. If you are interested in some free tutorials you might want to check out Web Class 101.

Use web-based site creators (portals).

There are services that allow you to create websites right through their browser so there is no software to buy or programming to learn. Although this service could be for free; many of these publishers are advertiser supported so, you should expect your visitors to be shown advertisements. Depending on your web presence strategy, this option may or may not be desirable.

Other Issues to Consider

What kind of look and feel do you want?

Consistency in look and feel is important for a website. Will it be corporate? Will it be fun? What kind of image will you portray?

Who is your audience?

What is the kind of the audience that you are trying to reach with your website? Will this segment of Internet users find easily what they are looking for on your site? How will they interact with your website's look, feel and content?

What technology do I need to support my website?

You will need to decide what level of technology is needed to support your website. For example, will your website work on all browsers or only the most current browser version? The most current browser version may allow you to use the latest cool features, but those same features will not work properly for a customer who is using an older browser.

Will your site work with or without special software plug-ins?

Certain technologies will require users to have special plug-ins installed in order for them to experience the site. Does this enhance the user experience or will you lose potential clients?

What level of interactivity do you require for your website?

For example, do you need form submission, a site search engine, a bulletin board, a guest book? Many of these enhancements to the website involve using cgi (common gateway interface) scripts. There are many free scripts out on the web, or you can program or modify scripts yourself, or hire a programmer to build a custom solution for your site. More recent webpage editors may allow you to add some interactivity without programming.

Do you have a website maintenance plan in place?

A successful website will typically have changing content and the most up-to-date information. You should also consider the ease with which you can update your website. This will impact your cost of being online.

Tips for Clients Who Will Outsource Web Design

The more work that you do before outsourcing, the more money you will save.
Research your competitors. Have a list of competitor websites you can give to your designer.
Find website designs that you like. Be able to provide examples of websites whose look and feel or navigation your site will resemble.
Collect all graphic assets. Make sure that you can provide any logos, fonts, pictures, etc. to your designer. Going back and forth to collect these assets will cause delays, frustration and more money. It's probably best to have these graphic assets as digital files.
Complete a site map. Unless you want to pay your designer for consulting work, have your site map ready ahead of time. This means a map of your entire site laid out as a tree. Show which pages link to which page so that there is no confusion.
Plan for growth. It is best to anticipate growth. If you want to add new sections later, let your designer know of your plans so that, for example, there is ample space in the navigation to add more links. The worst situation is to have to redesign the entire site when you add new content.