Domain Names – Keyword or Buisness Name?

When you are ready to launch a new web site and are at the stage where you want to pick and purchase a domain name for your web site, most will choose to use a domain name that is their company’s name. Although this is a good practice for building brand recognition, it may not always be the best route to choose for getting traffic to your web site. Unless you have a well established business with a name people know, you may be better off to do some keyword research and use keywords that are both related to your business or web site, as well as often searched on the search engines.

The reason I suggest this is this.. lets take 2 scenarios for a deeper look.
Lets say 2 people are launching simular web sites, their business / web site is geared towards landscaping.
Person A is using his company name “Acme-landscaping.com” (let’s say his company is called Acme Landscaping)
Person B is using the name “Affordable-landscape-toronto.com” (let’s say his company is called John’s Landscaping

Since both these persons are “new” to the web with their web sites, their main goal is more than likely to draw traffic and potential clients to their web site to build sales leads. Person A’s domain name, while it has the term “Landscaping” in their domain name is not as strong when it comes to the search engine’s as person B who has done some keyword research, and has decided to use the keywords “Affordable landscape toronto”, which is a heavily searched term on Google (since he did is research).

A lot of people who are new to online business and search engine optimization and marketing don’t realize that using keywords relative to their site or company’s industry can be a very powerful tool for marketing and bringing in traffic.

Adding a splash page for Joomla

On a Joomla based web site design project I was recently working on for a client, He had asked me to have a “splash page” which has his company logo and a enter link that first shows before the main Joomla site loads up for the visitor.

Normally this would be as simple as making a new html file, and adding a DirectoryIndex line in the .htaccess to have the server load this new spash page as the default page, and then this splash page links to the main site. Easy to do for Joomla right?… Wrong LOL

It seems with how Joomla 1.5x works, the main menu default item “home” if you have Joomla’s SEF turned on, will point the home link simply to “http://www.domainname.com/” (your root url) for the site, and not to a specific link such as index.php. What this meant was after I did the .htaccess change for the DirectoryIndex to be the splash page, when you called the site up, the splash page works, then you go into joomla and then click on the home link on the main menu, it jumps you back to your splash page, and not the main page of your joomla site.

After a little playing around, I found a simple enough solution…

(remember this solution only works with Joomla SEF and .htaccess turned on in the Joomla configuration)

1. Make your splash page as needed, call it whatever you wish (in my case splash.html). Have the link from the splash page goto http://yoursite.com/home.html (make sure you have your home link actually names and aliased as “home” in Joomla so the sef uses this as your home page link).
2. Edit the .htaccess in the root Joomla directory, at the top do your DirectoryIndex line for the new spash (in my case: DirectoryIndex splash.html).
3. Go into your Joomla Admin, edit your main menu, now edit the “Home” item, make sure it’s set as the front page blog style layout (or however you have set up your front page as).
4. Now create a new menu item on the main menu, call it “Dummy” and choose anything you want for the type of link.
5. Now on the menu item list, check the box beside your new dummy item, make it your default menu item.
6. Now edit this dummy item again, and change status to disabled.. (you can only do this via actually editing the menu item, it will not work if you just click on the check mark in the menu item list to disable it).

Now you should be able to use your splash screen and Joomla will behave!

What Type Of A Website For Your Business?

Depending on what kind of business you run, as well as what type of actual web site design you wish to have to represent your business online, you will need to plan out the sections needed for your web site design. Depending on the purpose of your company’s web site, you will need to have sections such as biography or company background, portfolio pages, contact pages, company staff or directory pages, services or products pages and more.. the sheer amount of possibilities for content of your site can be almost as overwhelming as the design process itself.

When I work with a client to plan or map out their web site design strategy, the first step for me is always a simple one… what is the main goal or purpose of the website.. and to break that down, it is simply a question of will the site be meant for providing information to the visitor about the company and it’s products or services, or will the web site design be geared more towards as e-commerce web site design, where the web site will function as an online commerce site to sell products and / or services on the web.

The Informational Web Site

The main goal of an informational web site is basically to act as a digital on-line portfolio for the business. To provide some background information on the company, information on the services or products they sell or provide, and give a means to contact them regarding sales leads and customer support.

An informational web site is usually developed using a CMS (Content Management System) such as Joomla or WordPress, but sometimes the site can be custom coded in flash, html, php, asp or a combination of any of these technologies. Informational web site designs are usually well suited for “trades” type businesses, such as landscapers, business professionals, schools or even clubs, as they generally do not have a tangible product to sell, but rather a service.

A typical informational type web site design may have the following pages and features:

• Home page with a welcome message, brief summary of the services or products or background on the company
• Company Information / About us page that has more details on the history of the company
• Services / Products pages that detail the services or products the company offers it’s customers or clients
• Portfolio page which has  samples of work done for pasty clients
• Testimonials page which would usually show  feedback about the experience past customers had with the business
• Contact Page which allows the visitors / clients / customers to contact the company

The E-Commerce Web Site Design

While the informational web site’s main purpose is to bring in sales leads and inform customers and potential customers about the products and services offered, an E-Commerce web site design’s purpose is to not only provide this information, but also entice the visitor to purchase a product or service, and pay for it online on the web site. Usually e-commerce sites offer tangible goods that are shipped to the customer, but I have had some clients who sell “services” in an e-commerce format as well in the past.

There are many open-source and commercial e-commerce platforms available in the market to choose from, some of the more popular ones are osCommerce, OpenSourceCart, ZenCart and Creloaded. Each has it’s own benefits and pitfalls, feature sets and scalability. Choosing what package to use is often a tricky balance between cost, scalability and features built-in.

Typically an E-Commerce web site design will have the following pages and basic features

• Home page which may provide some welcome information, company information and perhaps sale products or featured products for sale
• Company information page with background information on the company
• A products catalog which has categorized products the visitor can browse
• A shopping cart which allows the customer to add items to a virtual “basket” and then “check out” and pay for them
• Other e-commerce related information pages such as terms and conditions, shipping and ordering information / guidelines

So there is the basic breakdown of the two main types of web site designs for a company. Informational sites are meant as a portal to inform and educate the visitor on the company and it’s services, much like a digital brochure, while an E-Commerce web site design is geared more towards actually selling products online to consumers.

Open Source and Web Site Design

Where the code used to develop your web site comes from, is something that should not be overlooked when you are considering having a web site design created for your company, group or organization. Where the code your web developer or web design company chooses, can actually affect the price you pay for the development of your web site. There are  3 main avenues of code sourcing to consider when planning for your web site design. You can have custom code written for your site, you can go with a 3^rd party company’s proprietary code/software or you can choose to use an open source solution for your web site design and development.

In my personal opinion I think it’s best to always go with an open source solution…