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Detours Music Website Construction
Available for the
production of low-cost websites for small businesses
or personal users who wish to gain an 'internet
presence' at minimum cost -
for
advertising/information purposes
or selling
products/services over the internet
What is a website?
A website is
generally a presentation stored on a large
computer that anyone with Internet access
can view. A web page is simply a file of
text written in a code called HTML (Hyper
Text Markup Language), which tells the
visitor's web browser how to display the
content of that page. A website is a great
business tool, if used wisely. Website costs
can run into thousands of pounds, with
graphic designers charging over 50 quid plus
VAT per hour. At present Detours Music
offers low cost, professional, uncluttered
websites that use
HTML,
javascript, limited flash and other tools in
ways to enhance presentation. They are easy
to navigate and uncluttered.
Those customers requiring absolute cutting edge,
state of the art sites based around Flash
would be best to pay a professional graphic
designer to do the job, and we can certainly
point you in the right direction of people
that we endorse for such projects. If we
feel we cannot meet your requirements, we
will certainly say so. But for those of you
wishing to keep costs down, the websites
that we can offer have a very professional
look and should suit most small businesses
or individuals. Check out the rest of this
site, and many of those on our links page
for examples of our work.
How much do Detours Music
charge for constructing a website?
Please note that there are annual and
biannual costs that are not connected with
the actual designing/constructing of
websites. Firstly you must register a domain
name which then requires renewing every 2 to
10 years. Also, for a large website that
will use a large file size, a web hosting
account must be purchased and then renewed
annually. You can either get us to arrange
all this for you, or do it yourself. For
small websites you may use space on our own
account and use web forwarding/URL masking -
see
Frequently Asked Questions.
Then there's the designing, constructing,
publishing and maintenance (i.e. updating).
Every project is custom made, therefore it
is impossible to publish accurate pricing
details. Detours Music is a small business
that caters for the small businesses, bands
and artistes, and believes in giving high
quality at an incredibly competitive price.
We pride ourselves on taking the time to
learn what type of website the customer
really wants, and needs, and then we can put
a price to the project.
Planning a web site
This the most important
aspect to consider, it is also the area where you will save most money. You
need to consider the size of the project, what graphics and size of graphics
you need, the theme of the project, load speed, quality of the site, the
features you want, the audience you want to attract, how the navigation is
done, and very importantly the web address or name you wish to use.
A web designer will generally charge for
major changes at the construction stage.
Questions you should address
are...
What is
the purpose/intention of the site?
What
do you wish the site to achieve?
WHAT size is the project?
Where is the content coming from?
Who will provide graphics?
What size are my graphics?
What theme if any is there?
What audience are you aiming at?
What speed should the site load at?
(Large pictures and animations slow the site down)
How often will the site need updating?
What deadlines do you have for the site to
be live?
Building a website
This is
in essence what you pay for - the finished
product. Effective websites combine design
elements of speed and style with organised,
focused content to grab and hold attention.
Detours Music websites use HTML, javascript,
limited flash and other tools in ways to
enhance presentation. They are easy to
navigate and uncluttered.
In consultation with you the customer,
Detours Music will build the site to your
requirements, do any graphic manipulation
required, advise and if necessary guide you
through Domain registeration and purchase,
deal with the File Transfer Protocal,
Meta-Tag, and maintain the site in the
future. The cost of the project will depend
on the requirements of you the customer.
Hosting
a Web site
In simple terms this is the provision of web
space and the inclusive services necessary
to support the site. You have 2 basic
options, either free web space or paid for
web space. Free space is all very well
but, you may find yourself tied to a domain
name provided by that company (usually of no
practical use), you will generally find that
their technical support lines are very
expensive and mere navigation of their sites
requires an engineering degree. In addition
there is usually very limited web space, no
e-mail integration, and an unreliable
server.
Paid space is without doubt your best option
especially when considering a site for
business purposes. You will get several
e-mail accounts , directly related to your
domain name, e-mail auto responders,
adequate web space (iro 50-100mb), CGI
scripts, reliable, quick e-mail support,
unlimited FTP access.
Costing of web hosting is very much refined
to what is needed.
Submitting a Web site
to search engines
This is the
process of getting your web site listed on
search engines. Building a web site is one
thing - actually getting it noticed is
another. The submission process itself is
whereby the web site is presented to a
search engine. The preparation for this is a
procedure called "Meta-tagging" and "Key
wording" your site.
Meta-tags are
HTML tags that provide information that
describes the content of your web pages.
Using tags is important if you want the site
to be noticed by search engines. Search
engines incorporate reading meta tags as
part of their indexing formulas. Whilst meta
tagging is important the most important are
the description and keywords tags.
Many people will and do
pay money to specialist companies to specifically
optimise their sites for a high ranking on a search
engine.
Increase your search
engine rankings
This section deals with the
importance of incoming links to
increase your search engine
rankings. Building your website is
only the first step in developing a
successful online business or
community. When you launch your
website you will probably have very
little or no traffic (visitors) to
your website because they won’t know
you exist. Your next job is to let
people know about your website and
the services or products that you
offer. The best way of doing this is
through increasing the number of
incoming links to your website from
other websites.
Incoming links
An incoming link is a link to your
website from another website. Not
only does it generate traffic to
your website because people tend to
follow links from site to site, but
it also means that the more incoming
links you have to your website the
higher you will rank in the search
engine listings.
The largest of the search engines,
Google, not only looks at the amount
and quality of text on each page on
your website to decide where you
will rank in its search engine
results, but it also looks at how
many incoming links to your website
there are. In short, Google thinks
that the more incoming links there
are to a website, then the more
important that website must be.
Note that changes
in the way
Google ranks sites have
made it more difficult than
ever to to be high in its rankings.
If someone offers to get you top
place or a top five position in
Google they are conning you. Tell
them (politely!) that you are not
interested. There is no way of
guaranteeing your final position in
Google unless you are willing to pay
top dollar for inclusion in their
own, sponsored listings.
Google
now employ a kind of quarantine
period for new websites that has
been nicknamed 'the
sandbox'.
This appears to be used to prevent
unscrupulous web developers from
producing
highly optimised websites
that use questionable techniques to
gain
high rankings.
Some people were doing this knowing
that the site would eventually be
removed but all they were interested
in was making a quick killing.
It now takes three months or more
before your new site will produce
any significant Google traffic
meaning that this technique is no
longer viable. If you must get
traffic quickly you can opt to pay
for inclusion using
Google Adwords.
With Google
AdWords you can reach people when
they are actively looking for your
products and services. That means
you receive targeted visitors and
customers. Cost-per-click pricing
means you only pay when people click
on your ad and it is easy to control
costs.
On topic links
You may be thinking that you can ask
every man and his dog to link to
your website and it will increase
the traffic to your website and
therefore your search engine rank.
Unfortunately Google knows about
this tactic and it is why an
'on-theme' or 'on-topic' link is
valued a lot more than a link from a
completely unrelated website.
For example if you are a music store
selling music online, a link from a
music website is an on-topic link,
whereas a link from a mobile phone
manufacturer is completely off-topic
and is unrelated. Google can compare
an on-topic link against an
off-topic link and this will be
reflected in your ranking in its
results listing.
Non-reciprocal incoming links
A website linking to you without you
linking back to them is a
non-reciprocal link, and is valued
more than a reciprocated link (i.e.
a link exchange). Again, Google will
see this as evidence of the
importance of your website if people
want to link to you without
reciprocating the favour.
The best and most prevalent source
of non-reciprocal links are from
directories. Popular directories
include Yahoo! and the Open
Directory Project. However there are
hundreds of general and
industry-specific directories on the
web.
Other sources of non-reciprocal
links
Short of emailing other websites to
request a one-way link to your site
(which most webmasters will not
provide) another good method of
increasing the number of
high-quality incoming links is to
include the URL to your site
whenever posting on a forum or blog.
If you don’t post regularly to a
forum or blog, then try and find one
within your industry or community
and contribute as often as you can.
Not only will you be seen as an
expert, but each time you post and
leave your URL to your website, you
are creating a one-way link to your
website.
Reciprocal linking
Finally there are reciprocal links
which are usually the result of a
link exchange. You link to a website
in return for a link back. These
links do not carry as much weight as
far as major search engines like
Google are concerned. However, as
the main objective is to increase
traffic to your website, reciprocal
links are great because very often
users will browse though the web by
following links from website to
website and these links are a good
method of increasing your exposure
and traffic.
In addition to the above, there
are facilities available from
various sources such as SEO
procedures, Reciprocal Links
Programmes and Automated Links
Facilities. They generally cost
over a ton for initial set ups,
and then there are monthly
charges. No guarantee can be
provided that the customers'
webpages would then be linked at
the top of Google, or that they
would even receive an increase
in page rank.
If
you would like a quote from Detours Music,
please fill in the form below with as much
information as possible, or send us an e mail.
We will get back to you within 48 hours, under
normal circumstances. Thank you.
Please
read our
Frequently Asked Questions
for further information.
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Music 2004 - 2008