The Internet :

1.Why have a website, should I be on the internet?

If you have something interesting or useful, YES, and begin immediately, the sooner the better. Don't worry about the site not doing everything straight away, there is always time to improve it later.
If you don't have anything useful or interesting then don't bother as no one else will be interested either, the search engines, visitors will all ignore you because CONTENT IS KING.
Why have a website? Its a shop/promotional tool open 24 hours a day 7 days a week selling your product or service and you do as much or as little as you want to help it.

2.Can I make money on the internet?

YES, but it is important to remember to have something to sell. We have had many prospective clients who have come to us claiming that their websites do nothing for them. Normally this is because the website offers nothing more than a corporate chest -beating exercise which both visitors and search engines ignore. If you want your site to make money OFFER PRODUCT TO SELL and be informative and user friendly.
In our experience, since our first redesign of the edmonds site in 2000 to a 'Say what you do and do what you say' manner, we now get over 90% of all new enquiries and business from the internet. The quality and quantity of our new business is amazingly good and now our enquiries are generated not only from Edinburgh and Scotland, but from the UK and all over the world.

3.What’s so important about search engines?

80% of traffic to a site comes from search engines. They are the single most important source of traffic to your site. If your site cannot be found in search engines then you will get no visitors.

4.Search Engines

Google is the best and most used search engine. Edmonds design and build websites to do well in search engines and though all our sites do well (i.e.: get on the first page of Google results for their keywords) we have never paid for any search engine placement/keywords or advertisements
The Yahoo and MSN have a smaller share of the search engine market, though together with Google these 3 have 80% of the search market.The rest: ask, all the web, AltaVista, excite, AOL, hotbot, lycos, looksmart, overture and the thousands of others have a varying low percentage of searches. Some are still free to be listed in others you have to pay for.

5.The Future of the Internet: what’s going to happen?

No one knows for sure, and if anyone says they do know then they are mistaken.
At one end of the scale we have large Technology companies who want all our computers and homes and lives connected to them so that we pay them for everything we do. Lets call these the Wannabe Worldwide Economic Dictators
At the other end we have a worldwide community who want to help produce good products for free or as cheaply as possible and hopefully help to make a good and happy world: The Techno-Hippies.
The future is somewhere in between. But its worth realizing that the internet has not finished growing. First of all everyone who wants to be, needs to be online using broadband. Secondly localized internets are starting to appear, small communities ( muni wifi, towns, villages, friends) linking to each other directly by cable or wireless.
The internet has really only just begun and the bigger it grows, the more power shifts from big institutions like businesses and governments to the mass of individuals and no one knows what's going to happen then.

Getting Started:

1.How much money do i need to start a site?

It is possible to do it all yourself almost for free. Read the magazines or just visit the many websites that will explain what to do. You can get a free domain name (but watch out for the sting - they may charge you £100 to leave), free hosting, free secure shopping cart. But you need a lot of time. But this is the best way to do it - as your site starts to earn money you can start paying for a better host/isp, a better service, a better website that you know and understand and can do all yourself.
On the other hand, you can ask us to help, and get a good working site up within weeks because we are many years ahead on the internet learning curve. We can produce a site for you from as little as $500.
Either way, a well planned website should be not only self-financing but income generating within weeks of going live.

2.Hosting

We have 2 different hosting companies that we use. Hosting, including hosting the domain name, hosting the website and a general email address costs up to about $200. The more you need the more expensive it gets.
We always prefer to use Unix or Linux servers as they are more stable, more secure than Windows servers.
Some Hosts offer unlimited bandwidth so however many people visit your site you will not be charged more. Some hosts set a limit over which you will be charged.
Others may offer unlimited bandwidth but be slower at delivering your website files to visitors.

3.Email

All the hosting companies we use allow you to use any number of email addresses with your domain name - so anything-you-want@yourdomain.co.uk/com. When you check your mail anything sent to that domain will get to you. You can also have more email addresses that can be checked individually.

4. Domain Names

We can move your domain name to our hosts, we can buy you domain names and we can recommend domain names to you. The best domain names say what you are, using the words people would use when referring to your topic: a website called www.jsmithbeers.co.uk will do better in search engines than just www.jsmith.co.uk.

5. Images and words

Search engines read the code and the text of your site, they then decide what the website is about. If you use the words and phrases that people will use when referring to each page of your website then the pages will do well in search engines and people will visit.
When producing a site we will need to know the words, the keywords, for every product and service you offer and wherever possible images to match. Then each product and service must have as much detail as possible to be as helpful as possible to visitors.
Plus, we need logos, contact details, and terms and conditions for your services.

6.Updating: Once the site is up, is that it?

No. A good site changes content regularly, a great site changes content everyday and the whole site should continuously evolve. The more you change the content the more people will return to your site, link to your site, talk about your site, and the more search engines will return to relist your content.
We can help you develop an internet strategy, a plan of what you need to think about and do. We can make regular changes to the site. This would come under Maintenance.

The Web Site:

1. Web site Statistics - ignore the hits?

It is very important to check your web site statistics each month, but the number of visitors is not really very important - its whether they buy something or not.
From your stats you will see what product or service is popular or not, what people are looking for when they come to your site, where they go in your site, whether any part of your site is broken, what country they come form, how long they stay etc...
The number of HITS is irrelevant. For every page that a client visits there will be images and other files called by the server to compile the page for the visitors browser, each one of those actions is a 'hit'. A page with 40 pictures could mean 40 hits for 1 visitor. Ignore hits.
The number of HITS is irrelevant. For every page that a client visits there will be images and other files called by the server to compile the page for the visitors browser, each one of those actions is a 'hit'. A page with 40 pictures could mean 40 hits for 1 visitor. Ignore hits.

2. Databases

If you want a database we can do it. But they should be used sparingly and not for the whole site - for search engine visibility reasons. Search Engines find it easier to se html pages than active sites using .php or .asp pages. If the find the pages easier then the will list them more.

3. Forms

If you want forms we can do them. But they should be used sparingly as not everyone can be bothered to fill in a form, or trusts you with their details, or worst of all your form might not allow them to ask what they want to ask. You can lose clients with forms. Always offer another contact method, preferably all methods of contact i.e. telephone, email, fax.

4. Frames

Although visually they neatly divide the page, they are just awful. Search engines hate them as they can't see frames and therefore automatically don't trust your site. Sometimes a visitor can end up with a page from a framed site but no navigation. Awful, awful, Not recommended!

5. Flash Web Sites

Flash websites make the designer look very clever and the client a fat-headed show off. Most flash websites are slow to download, hard to navigate (unless you like going back to the beginning and starting again), devoid of information and difficult and expensive to maintain. On the plus Sid.