Establishing an Internet presence: your business on the World Wide Web

The Internet has become a central point of marketing for many businesses. Some businesses such as amazon.com, an on-line retailer, have made the Internet their core business, having no ‘brick and mortar’ or physical shop front at all. Others, the vast majority, have used the Web mainly as a means of advertising their business activity. Regardless of what your Internet visions are, creating some web presence seems unavoidable – even if it’s just to say that your business is keeping up with the times; and nothing is wrong with that, especially when it can cost less than TT$300 per month to have your site hosted.

Your Web presence, however, is more than just Hosting. It begins with Domain Name Registration. You must decide whether you want one of those popular Top Level Domain names such as .COM, .BIZ, .INFO, .SHOP or would you prefer something that would lend some geographical identity such as a Country Level Domain name as .TT (Trinidad and Tobago), .LC (St. Lucia) or .BB (Barbados). Once that is decided you need to conduct a Domain Name Search to determine if the Second Level name is available in the particular Top Level or Country Level Domain you have chosen. This is where the ‘branding’ of your business becomes important, because the second level name is the ‘AMAZON’ in WWW.AMAZON.COM.

Once your name is registered then you could look at Hosting – whether your want shared or managed hosting or even if you want to do your own hosting on a server within your company’s network. The majority opt for Shared Hosting which is having a third party Hosting Provider put your site on a their Web server with other sites. This is simple and effective and the lowest cost option. If you have many specialized Web Applications you may want Managed Hosting. This is where the Hosting Provider dedicates a physical Server Computer just for your company’s use. This is also sometimes referred to as Dedicated Hosting and is a much more expensive option.

Once you have decided on your Hosting options then you need to design your website. This is the job of the web designer. Depending on how complex your site is you may also require the use of a programmer and/or database administrator. Further, if you want to conduct secure transactions on your site you will have to get a Certificate Authority such as Verisign to validate your site.

As you can imagine having your business on the World Wide Web can run from the cost of a couple of lunches per month to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Whatever you should decide, whether a simple Web Presence or a Complex Multi-Application Web Site - Zandolie can help. For the very complex websites we can act as advisors and source resources that we do not have in-house. For the simple sites we can be your One-Stop-Shop. Yet, the customer should keep in mind that he should not invest in technology for technology’s sake and that the benefits of any technology should be greater than its cost. Technology should only be implemented if it would provide real productivity gain. 

Our site was kept simple because that was the way the Managing Director wanted it - simple and straight to the point.  However, that may not work for all types of businesses. You have to know what you need and what your intended audience prefers.