4. Registering your domain name and finding a host
Choosing a domain name is becoming increasingly difficult, mostly because the bulk of the desirable .com and .net names have already been registered, mostly by opportunistic web "entrepreneurs" who plan on selling you the domain name they already own (at a profit). If you want a serious and visible web presence, the .com or .net domain names are the only way to go. They will cost you $35 a year in Internic fees (fees payable to the central registering authority) and, depending on who does it for you, another $10 to $40 admin fee once off. Once the domain name is yours, nobody can use it. You will have to renew it at $35 a year as long as you want to keep it. Registering your own domain name is simple at sites like www.register.com.
Another route to go is that of using a free hosting service. They'll host your site and assign a domain name for free, in return for which they place advertisements on your site. The free hosting services are no problem if you're looking for a non-interactive site to use as more of an online brochure. Increasingly, they also offer to register your .com name for no more than the $35 Internic fee and then host the .com name with the same advertising arrangement.
However, if you want more interaction and e-commerce to take place on your site, the free hosting services don't cut it and support is limited from their technical staff. Hosting services are lowering their fees by the week and you can expect to get an entry level package for a little over $10 a month, excluding setup fees. For a basic psychological service marketing site, you'll need no more than 10MB of storage space on the host's server. Technical support is often much better with paid hosting services and there are options to include higher end functions, like e-commerce facilities and greater interactivity on your site.
5. Getting your site built
Depending on your computer knowledge, your energy levels and how adventurous you'd like your site to be, you may be able to design your site yourself. HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is the programme code used throughout the web. However, as with most fast-growing computer industries, software is available free or at a low cost on the net, which will enable you to get a basic site up and running without any knowledge of HTML. If you plan on a more substantial web presence, you may consider investing in an HTML editor like Adobe GoLive or Macromedia Dreamweaver, both of which will be adequate to any design task you take on. Owning an HTML editor will also allow you to update your site without outside assistance.
The other alternative is to get your site designed and built by a professional web design consultant. Expect to pay in the region of $35 to $50 an hour for their services and you can bank on one to two pages per hour for their design time. If you provide clean, well considered content, this should bring the cost down. Some little extras you may consider here, depending on your site's aims, are:
* An e-mail link to you, which brings up the user's e-mail programme and automatically puts your address in the address line. This may be useful in encouraging visitors to ask for more information or allow them to comment on your site;
* An e-mail list visitors can join to discuss a specific issue with others on the list, serving as a support group of sorts where the site concerns a specific psychological difficulty;
* Online forms which visitors can complete to request further information, order your services or make payments to you. When confidential information or credit card information is in transit, you may look into using a secure e-commerce gateway. While the chances of a fraudster hacking into a small-scale, specialist, low-traffic site are extremely remote, users take great comfort in knowing that the server on which they submit this information is secure, with a consequent positive effect on the rate of orders you can expect. If you plan to take credit card payments from clients, you will need a merchant account, the costs of which are unlikely to be worth your while if your credit card turnover is less than $500 a month;
A regularly updated page or e-mail service on news or research which relates to your area of specialisation. This can be a good way to develop some loyalty among visitors. Those who sign up for the e-mail service can be alerted on a monthly basis on new developments in the area.
6. Marketing your site
This step can take much time and effort and you could expect to spend a few dozen hours on the internet tracking down the best routes to attempt and targeting them with online marketing. Also, treat this as an ongoing process, progressively chiselling your way into the internet zones you best relate to and which offer the best chances of increased visitor frequency. Among the most obvious ways to become more visible are:
* Submitting your site to search engines. There are a number of free or low cost software packages available to help you do this on the net, saving you the trouble of logging on to the submission sites of each search engine. But expect to wait around six months for many of the search engines to have included you on their database.
New Therapist
Indispensable survival guide for the thinking therapist