It seems like everyone has a website, so you want to have one too! This section helps you get started an on your way to an online presence. Also in this section are various technology topics.

Quick Index to this section:

• Create Your Own Website
• Create Your Own Website Guides
• E-commerce Privacy Laws
• Internet Marketing
• Email Etiquette
• Anti-Virus, Firewalls and Anti-Spyware
• Computer Education

Checklist for Creating your own Website

1) Give your website project some thought by reviewing the website worksheet at: www.scorenaples.org/library/website worksheet.pdf. Another source to learn more about websites in general and the many considerations is: www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?r.l1=1073861197&r.s=tl&topicId=1073866263. Even though the site originates in the UK, it has good general information, including topics on E-commerce law (complying with spam laws and customer privacy information).

2) Think of a name for your website and make sure the name is available by checking the availability at: www.checkdomain.com or www.hostway.com or www.networksolutions.com/whois

3) Choose a hosting company. This is the place where your website physically resides and is available to the world. If you plan to do your own website development, one good hosting company I recommend is www.bluehost.com (about $6.95/mo for 24 months and includes your domain name). Some other plans can be found at www.ixwebhosting.com, www.hostmonster.com, www.bluedomino.com, www.1and1.com, and www.hostway.com

4) If customers will order and pay on the web, decide if you will accept credit cards. If the number of customers will not be real large and steady, I recommend trying PAYPAL instead of a VISA merchant account (unless you already have one). PAYPAL lets you take credit cards on the web using an email id. Each transaction (sale) costs approximately $0.30 plus 2.9% of the sale amount. No monthly fees, no initiation fee. This is much cheaper than a VISA merchant account (over $50/mo + transaction fees), but requires a little more work on the customer's part to register themselves with PAYPAL. If they are already set up, it is seamless. E-Bay uses PAYPAL extensively. Bottom line, PAYPAL has No upfront costs and is Pay as you sell.

5) Create web pages, load to hosting company, and set up Paypal account. This cost is entirely variable on what your plans are. If you want the best software, I recommend Dreamweaver from Macromedia. The Studio suite product contains high end tools to manage your graphics, create movies and build dynamic websites. You can get the free HTML editors NVU (www.nvu.com) and also Mozilla Composer (www.mozilla.org/products/mozilla1.x/). Using a free HTML editor gives you an feel for composing web pages and may help you decide whether you want to develop your own website or hire it done. Also check out www.download.com and search on HTML EDITORS.

Website hosting companies often have free tools available to help you create a simple website as well as custom development. There are also many companies out there that will develop web pages for you. Some local choices (of which we have no personal experience) are www.thewebprofessional.com, www.adgcreative.com, www.exploritech.com and www.isoosi.com.

Website design tips can be found at www.web-source.net or see your public library for website design books such as ‘Web Design in a Nutshell’ by Jennifer Niederst, 'Building a Website for Dummies' (ISBN 0-7645-7144-3) and 'My Website is Better than Yours' (ISBN 0-9767569-0-0)

6) Submit your site to search engines. Some examples:www.google.com/addurl.htm, www.yahoo.com (suggest a site), http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx, www.altavista.com, http://dmoz.org/add.html, http://submitit.bcentral.com/msnsubmit.htm.

7) After evaluating the results of #6, consider paying for a spot move up your GOOGLE search engine rating. After that, you have to do advertising on a click- thru basis with specific engines such as Google. To read more about it, go to:

http://www.hostway.com/smb/businessresources/marketingservices.html
or
https://adwords.google.com/select/main

Download free guide to doing business online from Entrepreneur magazine. These comprehensive resources cover everything from planning to analyzing competition to setting up your Web site.
http://www.entrepreneur.com/uploadedFiles/images/pdf/paypalbusinessonlineguide.pdf
http://www.entrepreneur.com/ebusiness/howtoguides/index.html

Read an article by Shelley Lowery called The Birth of a Professional Web Site
Also consider reading a related article by Shelley Lowery on self publishing an e-book called Ebooks -- Self-Publishing Your Way to Internet, which has some good marketing tips for website products.

Guides for Website Creation

Read an Article on Creating Your Own Website at:
www.scorenaples.org/library/articlewebsite.pdf

View a SCORE Presentation on Creating Your Own Website at:
www.scorenaples.org/library/website.pdf

View notes on optimizing your site for Search Engines (SEO):
www.scorenaples.org/library/seo.pdf

Tips to using Wordtracker Software to generate Adwords keywords:
www.wordtracker.com/attachments/keyword-research-guide.pdf

E-commerce and Privacy Laws

Privacy laws at the Federal level: U.S. privacy laws are industry based (e.g. those that regulate financial institutions (Gramm-Leach-Bliley), health information (HIPPA), etc.);

Privacy laws at the State level: These privacy laws tend to focus on broad notification to consumers of breaches (e.g. customer database stolen or hacked). California is particularly stringent (that is why you sometimes see ads in the newspapers announcing security breaches).

Privacy laws at the International level: These tend to be much more strict than U.S. laws and focus on the type of information that is protected (name, addresses etc.) rather than industry based. If you have any intention of doing business internationally, it is better to comply with all laws and take a stricter approach (e.g. opt-in e-mail lists rather than opt-out). See some tips at: http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?
r.l3=1075384925&r.l2=1073866263& r.t=RESOURCES
& r.i=1075385095&r.l1=1073861197&r.s=sc
& type=RESOURCES& itemId=1075385126

As a general rule, if you adopt a privacy policy, it is considered a contract and thus you will be held accountable to what you include in those provisions.

U.S. SPAM law references: See www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/canspam.htm and www.spamlaws.com

Presentations on Internet Marketing

Internet Learning Tour: www.superpages.com/ilt/ (Basic Internet skills and Online marketing)

July 20, 2006 - Powerpoint- Audio- Internet Marketing 101: Search Engine Marketing

June 15, 2006 - Handouts - Internet Marketing 101: Web and Email Marketing

How to REALLY Market on the Internet

Email Etiquette

Click HERE to read some tips on email etiquette.

Anti-Virus, Firewalls and Anti-Spyware

Given the number of malicious attacks on computers every day, it is imperitive that every computer have protection. Anti-Virus software protects you from such things as malicious email attachments. Firewall software protects you from port attacks (kind of like a break-in to your home through the back door). Anti-Spyware software protects you from software that watches what you do and 'spies' on you and your personal information.

Below are some recommendations for software (both free and paid subscriptions). Obviously, you generally get more features and better ease of use with paid subscriptions.

PAID SOFTWARE

· AntiVirus/Firewall: ZoneAlarm Security Suite 6.5 (www.zonelabs.com) All-in-one

· AntiSpyware: Spy Sweeper 5.0 (http://www.webroot.com/) or Spyware Doctor 4.0 (http://www.pctools.com/spyware-doctor)

FREE SOFTWARE (because no one should be without protection just because they don’t have the money or want to spend the money)

· AntiVirus: Avast Home Edition (http://www.avast.com/eng/free_virus_protectio.html) and AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition (http://free.grisoft.com/doc/avg-anti-virus-free/lng/us/tpl/v5)

· AntiSpyware: Microsoft’s Windows Defender (http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx) for real-time monitoring and Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition (http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/) for anything that sneaks past.

· Firewall: Comodo’s Firewall (http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/)

 

Computer Education Opportunities

Lorenzo Walker Institute of Technology has onsite and online courses in computer technologies such as Quickbooks, Microsoft Office, : see www.lwit.edu for a catalog of courses and certifications or www.ed2go.com/lwit for a list of online courses.

See www.lynda.com for a wide variety of online training programs available to you for a small monthly fee.

SCORE Naples
900 Goodlette Road North
Naples, FL 34102
(click HERE for directions to our office)

Telephone: (239)430-0081
FAX: (239)430-0082
Email: score@scorenaples.org

Office Hours: Mon-Fri  9am-noon