There are generally 2 options for creating a website, building a new website from scratch or redesigning your current website.
Building your first website
The first task when making a new website is to find your domain name. Domain names generally cost $25.00/year to hold, you can check if your domain name is available here: 1st Domains (I recommend purchasing all possible URL extensions .co.nz, .nz, .com to eliminate competitors capitalising on misspellings).
The domain name is similar to the address of your house with your house being the website, each URL contains records which tell people where your website and servers where your mail should be sent/received.
When you first register a domain name, the address will point to a landing page of the company you purchased the domain from.
Content should be unique and useful, copying content from another website can have a negative impact – if you are trying to rank for this content, Google can compare your content to the original source and detect which website created the content first, the website which copied will have a hard time ranking for it’s keywords and in some cases be penalised.
- Windows (Plesk)
- Linux (cPanel)
- Virtual Private Server (VPS)
- Shared Hosting
- Dedicated Hosting
- Cloud Hosting
The difference between these options is maintenance, speed, price and security. Dedicated hosting is usually the most expensive and considered the safest while shared hosting is more affordable but shares space with other websites meaning it is important to use provider who knows what they are doing
Selecting your own hosting can save you a small amount of money, however, this means you will be responsible for maintaining the server which includes:
- Setting up back-ups
- Restoring back-ups if required (site has been attacked)
- Creating email accounts and mailboxes
- Setting up email accounts on mail clients (Outlook, Gmail etc)
- Resolving mail/hosting issues
Sapling uses Amazon AWS (VPS), maintains all back-ups and keeps all software/web sites up to date. Your website will have its own IP address and options available for increasing server performance – speed will not be an issue.
Sapling’s hosting cost is $40.00/month for developed websites (we do not import sites).
(POP3/IMAP email hosting is a not available on the VPS).
Third party options will have an additional costs, are far more reliable and the better option for large amounts of email accounts. One considerable benefit over generic email hosting is that third party accounts do not share hosting with your website – this means if your website was to go down, the email will remain active.
I highly recommend Gsuite (Google Business Email) as it synchronises with your website and can be used as the mail server.
I will discuss designs, example websites and features you would like to include then start working on your new website.
WordPress is a CMS (Content Management System) which has strong page structure, editing abilities and user-friendly editing. I’ll create a site using designs that best represent your business and the goals you would like to achieve.
We test the website across multiple devices and install the following where applicable:
- Google Analytics Allows you to view activity on your website and see where your traffic comes from.
- Verifying Search Console Important information about your site and its relationship with Google, see exact terms people use to find you.
- Registering Google Business Listing Creates strong presence with local search results, mobile search and industry specific competition.
Depending on the ownership for the domain, either we will update the records to the live site or make request to the domain owner to have the records updated. Updating your mail records will also depend on the option you have selected for email hosting.
Once everything has been changed your site will be live.
Once your website is live, you will receive training on using your CMS to make changes to your website, instructions for using email and access to your Analytics. For any future work you would like done to the website can be requested at anytime.
Redesigning your website
Websites which have not been updated, maintained properly, poorly built or infected quite often become expensive to repair leaving the best option to be a rebuild. When rebuilding your website there are a few areas which need attention and if not taken care of properly, can result in damages to your website rank.
Each website needs to be addressed at individual level for an accurate quote.
Landing pages/HTML Development
Want to focus on ranking high for a specific search term? Or need to improve conversion rates for Google Ads?
Creating a landing page optimised for your keywords and user experience is the best option for improving results. It’s a great way to build long term benefits as the page will gradually increase in ranking positions with great user behaviour (time on site, low bounce rate and high conversions) which shows Google that people are happy with the result they searched. I can also design the page to reflect Google display ads, this helps lowering high bounce rates which can be quite common.
Pricing
When building a website, there are a lot of factors which can affect the price. Some of these factors are logo design, content creation or hosting and email options. Landing pages also vary depending on existing content and CMS limitations, tt’s best for you to contact me for an accurate estimate.
Connect.
SOCIAL PRESENCE
Location.
WHERE I WORK
City: Christchurch
Country: New Zealand
