Welcome to our Frequently Asked Questions page: we hope you find the information you are looking for. If not, why not complete our Feedback form?
Table of Contents
- Why do we need a website?
- We don't have the first idea of how to get a web presence - will you take care of everything for us?
- What are the key steps involved in getting our website?
- What is the basis of your charges?
- What domain name(s) should we register, and how would you do this?
- What should the main purpose of our site be, initially?
- Can we have as many professional looking email addresses (x.y@oursite.com) as we like?
- Will you design our web site for us and what are your charges?
- Will you host our web site for us and what are your charges?
- Will you administer our web site for us and what are your charges?
- Can we administer our web site if we prefer to do so, and if so how easy is this?
- If at a later date we decide to move to another host, how easy is it to arrange this, and will you charge for this?
- What internet server do you use and why do you not provide a Service Level Agreement with uptime guarantees etc.?
- We want good web statistics so that we know who is visiting our site: will you provide this?
- Do you have any other useful information that will help us as an SME, charity or non profit organisation?
Why we need a website?
Imagine asking "do we need a telephone number" in 1950. Every day more and more people become connected to the internet (currently over 30 million in the UK according to the BBC), and these same people expect to be able to find information, look at online catalogues of goods or services, contact organisations by email, and in some cases even to be able to buy securely by credit card without having to leave the comfort of their homes or offices.
Whatever business you are in, whether you are an SME (small or medium size enterprise), or a charity/endowment or other non profit organisation, we all have "customers" of one sort or another, whether they be traditional shoppers, other businesses, or donors / members.
Having a website can make the difference between having a potential worldwide base of customers and simply not appearing on their radar screen. Thanks to a website, SMEs can obtain a presence on the internet that competes effectively with the largest organisations.
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We don't have the first idea of how to get a web presence - will you take care of everything for us?
Yes! If you want us too, we will take care of everything from registering a domain name (e.g. www.yourcompany.com) to designing and producing the web site and finally administering it for you. Because we combine business and technical expertise, we don't expect you to know exactly what you want on your web site. Instead, we will be able to produce a suitable site for you simply after talking to you and looking at your existing brochures, adverts and other marketing materials. If you like, we will even take digital pictures of your products to put on the web into an online catalogue.
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What are the key steps involved in getting our website?
The key steps are:
- registering a suitable domain name or domain names, e.g. yourcompany.com, yourcompany.co.uk etc.
- designing a site that provides an effective internet presence for your organisation
- uploading your site to a server (a machine connected permanently to the internet) provided by a web hosting company
- administering the site on a regular basis to make sure that it keeps up to date and that customer requests are being answered
We can help you with all of these steps, or alternatively, just with the aspects that you don't feel comfortable handling yourselves.
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What is the basis of your charges?
Our charges are based on two factors:
- the need to recover (or pass on to you) charges we incur with third parties, including domain name registrars such as UKReg and UK2net, the costs of renting our web servers from UK2net, and of purchasing Secure Site Certificates
- costs for the time spent by our consultants working on and administering your sites (all our quotes are based on a flat £50 + VAT per hour charge rate, and where we quote fixed fees we base these quotes on the estimated number of hours work required). This is a very competitive rate given that our consultants combine business, marketing and technical expertise, and are thus able to provide a more efficient service than teams where each member has knowledge only in one discipline.
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What domain names should we register, and how would you do this?
Assuming that you have already registered your organisation's name as a legal entity with the appropriate authorities (e.g. in the UK Companies House for limited companies, or the Charities Commission in the case of charities) then the ideal is to register a domain name that meets the following criteria:
- it should resemble your legal entity name as closely as possible, to avoid confusing customers, and to help them find both your site and your organisation's physical "bricks and mortar" offices/shops
- it should be as short as possible, to help customers remember your web address (note: most names of less than 5 letters have already been registered however, at least with the traditional .com etc suffixes)
- the suffix should reflect the nature of your organisation (e.g. .com for US or international commercial, .org for a charity or non profit body, .net for a community, .co.uk for a UK commercial organisation, ...). New suffixes such as .biz, .info, .tv will be available later this year (2001), but our present understanding is that a .com or .org name will remain the best choice for commercial and non profit organisations respectively
- in theory, having registered the most appropriate domain name for your organisation, e.g. yourcompany.com, you should also register similar variants (such as yourcompany.co.uk, yourcompany.org, yourcompany.net, yourcompany.uk.co., and domains based on any common misspellings of your organisation's name). This involves extra cost, but has the advantage of preventing malicious or fraudulent persons from "cyber-squatting", that is to say masquerading as you (in practice, you may take the view that it is only worth registering all such similar names if and when your site gets to the stage where it is receiving or likely to receive a very large number of visitors!)
- it is best to register the name for more than 2 years (e.g. 5 or 10 years), since you get a better price and a) it saves time renewing, and b) it lets customers and competitors know that you are in business for the long term.
Domain names need to be registered with official registrars. Until recently, an organisation called Network Solutions held a monopoly on .com style domain name registration, and charged $70 per year. Now, there are many new organisations who have been officially recognised as registrars, and competition has led to much reduced prices. At present, we register our own domain names, and names on clients' behalf through UKReg and UK2Net.
These organisations provide facilities on their web sites for you to search as to whether your chosen domain names are available. We recommend that clients register their own domain names if possible, since this is one area which is fairly well automated by UKReg, UK2Net and others. However, if clients wish us to do this on their behalf, we make a charge of £75 + VAT to cover our administration time, in addition to passing on the registration charges incurred (currently £80+VAT for registering a .com for 10 years through UKReg) to the client.
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What should the main purpose of our site be, initially?
Initially at least, your web site should provide a point of contact on the internet for your potential customers/members. It should be a virtual "shop window" that visitors can look at in order to find out about your organisation, and the products and services you offer.
If somebody telephones you and asks you for information about your organisation, what do you tell them? What brochures, catalogues and other written information do you offer to post to them? At a minimum, such information should form part of your website; you'll be amazed at how much more informed your customers will be once they've seen your site.
You should also include contact information, including an email address (e.g. enquiries@yourdomain.com and ideally a telephone number [ultimately, many people like to speak to a human being to resolve any doubts or difficult questions they may have] ). We also recommend that you include a search facility (users will appreciate being able to find out whether what they want is available on your site quickly, without having to look through lots of pages) and a feedback/contact form (so that users can make suggestions or enquiries conveniently from their browser).
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Can we have as many professional looking email addresses (x.y@oursite.com) as we like?
Yes!
If you host your site with us, we allow you to have up to 20 separate email addresses, e.g. Fred.Smith@yourdomain.com, Jane.Smith@yourdomain.com, etc. (If you need more than 20, just ask and we can arrange this for a modest extra fee!)
Do as the big companies do!
In addition, you may set up as many aliases as you like, e.g. sales@yourdomain.com, enquiries@yourdomain.com, etc. and arrange for any emails addressed to such aliases to be sent to any of your chosen email addresses x.y@yourdomain.com. You can even arrange for a catch all email alias, so that anythingelse@yourdomain.com (i.e. where anything else is anything other than the x.y names you have already set up and any aliases for them) is forwarded to a specified x.y@yourdomain.com.
Will you design our web site for us and what are your charges?
Yes! (if you want us to, otherwise if you already have a site, we are happy to host and or administer your site for you)
We will either work to your instructions (if you already have a clear idea of what you would like your site to look like) or we will:
- meet with you (or if you prefer, hold a consultation meeting over the telephone) to assess your requirements
- work from your existing written marketing materials, such as brochures, catalogues, advertising copy (remember, your site needs at a minimum to give as much information as you'd like to provide to a telephone caller)
- if desired, take digital photographs of your products (and key personnel if you like!)
- we will then design a draft site which you will be able to test over the internet
- we will then take any comments you may have and amend the site accordingly
- your presence on the internet will then be fully established, and you will be open for business to the internet's more than 300 million (and rising) users!
Our charges are based on a time and materials basis, with an hourly rate of £50 + VAT. For a typical, standard (shop-window) SME site, with 15 pages, using existing marketing materials, and on the assumption of two 2 hour meetings (in addition to a free 1 hour initial consultation, meetings may be conducted either in person or by telephone), the time charges are likely to be £500 + VAT. Additional charges may be made if physical meetings are required and involve significant travel for our consultants who are based in Bournemouth, UK. In many cases, telephone meetings will suffice, as the draft site can be viewed over the internet (it is helpful if clients can connect to the internet and talk on the telephone - e.g. on a mobile phone - at the same time).
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Will you host our web site for us and what are your charges?
Yes! (if you want us to, otherwise if you already have a place to host your site, we are happy to administer your site for you)
Hosting a web site means providing space for that site and all associated files on an internet server (a machine which is permanently connected to the internet). Please see this page for our current prices for web hosting.
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Will you administer our web site for us and what are your charges?
Yes! (if you want us to, otherwise you can administer your site quite easily from a graphical user interface over the internet).
Administering your site includes the following:
- uploading the initial pages, and other files (such as pictures and forms etc.)
- creating user email accounts and configuring them with the desired aliases including a catch all alias
- responding to emails addressed to webmaster@yourdomain.com
- updating the site under your instructions as material becomes out of date or as the site grows
- adding new features (should you wish) such as e-commerce or database facilities
We charge for web administration on time and materials basis, with the time charge being £50 + VAT per hour.
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Can we administer our web site if we prefer to do so, and how easy is this to do?
Yes! If you want to perform your own administration (see above for the work involved in administration), you can administer your site quite easily, from your own pc, using a web based graphical user interface (updated 02 September 2001 to include Secure Sockets Layer or SSL, the industry standard for encryption to maximise security), shown here:
You use this user interface to create user email accounts and configure them with the desired aliases (including if desired a catch all alias).
In order to upload and update the files (pages) on your web site, you will need to have a copy of suitable website authoring software, such as Microsoft FrontPage 2000, or Macromedia Dreamweaver, or an FTP (file transfer protocol) program, and to know how to use such software. Our server fully supports Microsoft Front Page 2000.
Web administration software is slightly more complicated than word processor software packages such as Microsoft Word or Lotus Amipro. However if you like using software packages, then there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to learn one of the web authoring packages.
If you need help with your learning, we will be glad to provide this, again on our standard time and materials basis, with the time charge being £50 + VAT per hour.
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If we decide at a later date to move to another host, how easy is it to do this, and will you charge for this?
Moving to another web host is normally simply a matter of changing the DNS (Domain Name Server) records for your domain name with the registrar from our DNS servers to those of your new host. This requires you (or us on your behalf should you wish us to do so) filling in a standard form on the registrar's website. You will then need to wait typically between 24 and 72 hours for the record changes to propagate through all the necessary domain name databases in the world, after which you can upload your site to your new host and the transfer will have been completed.
So, depending on the precise registrar used, this is normally an easy process, and, no , we will not charge for this. However, please note that all hosting fees are payable in advance, and are non refundable (in other words, if you move to another host part way through the year, there will be no refund in respect of the remaining part of the year).
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What internet server do you use, and why do you not provide a Service Level Agreement with uptime guarantees etc.?
The server on which we host our own as well as client sites is a Cobalt RAQ3 running Apache software on a Linux operating system, which has proven to be a very popular platform for internet servers due to its stability and ease of configuration. We rent our server from UK2net, a company which is based in Docklands, London, and which has a network consisting of just under 1,000 such machines. UK2net have grown rapidly due to a low price / no support approach.
We have no SLA with UK2, and since we are dependent on the reliability of UK2's network, we cannot provide any guarantees to clients about uptime. During early August 2001, several machines on the UK2 network experienced significant downtime (i.e. the sites hosted on these machines were not viewable on the internet during hours at a time) during a period of approximately 2 weeks due to a hacker DOS (denial of service) attack. This attack has been fixed and measures have been put in place to prevent similar attacks from taking place in future (however, such is the pace of change with regard to internet security that no one can be sure that their site is immune from new types of attacks - after all, the FBI's site has reportedly been hacked on several occasions).
There remains therefore a risk of downtime occurring in future due to factors beyond our control, which all clients need to be aware of. However,
- we have experienced no problems of any kind in the 5 months since we have been using the server. During this period it was only rebooted twice, on each occasion for about 2 minutes, and this was because of maintenance software updates to fix security patches.
- we host our own company sites (www.inqa.com and www.inqawebs.com) on the server. This is because our previous experience over the last two years with expensive external web hosts proved disappointing: we experienced problems on a regular basis and for no apparent reason, and with no explication from the host organisation
- we keep local copies of all sites for which we are the administrators as backup. If you administer your own site, we recommend you do the same: this enables you to move the site rapidly, should the worst come to the worst, and you need to get a new host for whatever reason.
As an alternative, if you really need a SLA guaranteeing 99.9% uptime and other such conditions, there are hosts promising to do this, but our experience is that paying high prices for web hosting is no guarantee in practice of better quality service. However, we understand that there are a few companies who provide a fully guaranteed service, with a strong track record of delivering, but only at the expense of annual hosting fees exceeding £500 or £1,000 or even more.
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We want good web statistics so that we can analyse who is visiting our site: can you provide this?
If you host your website with us, you will have access to two different kinds of statistics on your site:
- you will be able to access daily, monthly and annual graphical reports produced by Webalizer software
- if you prefer, you may also receive the raw log files for processing with alternative software.
Here is an example of a Webalizer report (see here and here for more information):
In addition to the summary page shown above, detailed analysis is provided of referrers, most frequent visitors, most popular pages and a wealth of other information which will help you to see what is and what isn't working on your site, and how to improve it to make it serve your customers' needs better.
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Do you have any other useful information that will help us as an SME, charity or non profit organisation?
Please see our useful links page which contains information about sites that we have found very useful in running our business and we think you will find helpful too.