notacomputergeek

Domains are needed mainly for email addresses or websites. We’ve covered email addresses in a previous blog, but I wanted to talk a little about websites. Your domain name would be in the form of mybusinessname.com, but you can also choose many different domain name extensions, such as .org, .net, .tech, .online, etc. I believe there are over 400 different extensions. Some of the popular domain registration companies are GoDaddy, IONOS, Network Solutions, Namecheap, etc. If you are not adept at creating webpages from scratch, then opt for a hosting company that offers a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) creation tool. Most of these sites will offer various templates to get you started and you fill in the blanks. Once you’ve published it to the internet, you now have an online presence where you can direct potential clients. If you want to make frequent content updates, but don’t want to do it on your website, you can choose to also have a Facebook page. Either way, you’ll need a strategy to direct people to your pages. If you are a very small company, on a tight budget, or have limited time, skip the website and just set up a Facebook page with your contact info.

The first question I ask a client is, “Strategically, what do you want your website to do?” Do you want six pages of seldom changed information or a fully configurable website with calendars, blogging, animation, shopping cart, etc. Many companies have grand ideas for their websites, but I caution you to only put up as much as you can maintain. You want to drive people to your site – not away. It’s also very common to completely redesign your website every 3-5 years to keep it fresh looking.

Only a few years ago, having a website was all you needed to worry about, now there is a long list of social networking sites. The most common business sites are Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, and Instagram. It can be daunting to know which ones to use, how they work, and what to post. This might be a good time to find a vendor who can do this for you or set it up and show you how to do content changes or posts. Three things to watch out for as an employer: 1) Review what you or your employees post. You don’t want any lawsuits or bad publicity, 2) Your employees should be working, not participating in personal social networking, and 3) Social networking has become one of the top ways that viruses, malware, and malicious intent can spread.

You now have a website or social media site – great, but how do you drive traffic to it? Post relevant, quality, timely content and add appropriate keywords and tags to your pages. Also, add links to your other sites and posts to promote your message. Be patient, it will take time for your pages to be seen and ranked by the search engines and you want to be near the top. To get better visibility, all search engines allow you to buy search ads, but this can get expensive.

One caveat – malicious intent through social engineering, which is defined as the use of deception to manipulate individuals into divulging confidential or personal information that may be used for fraudulent purposes. Too many people post too much personal information on their websites and social media sites. Criminals use this information to formulate attacks on you. It is very common for businesses to list staff names and email addresses on their websites. However, it’s easy for criminals to get this information and create a spoofed email that looks like it’s coming from the CEO and sent to the CFO requesting funds be transferred to another bank account. It’s also easy to find someone’s name, address, phone number, relatives, schools attended, photos, etc. and then pretend to be that person for malicious reasons. Be careful what you share online.

A bit of my history
• In the 1980s, the “internet” was a bunch of Bulletin Boards you could view (if you were granted access). Many of them were hosted at universities or in some geek’s basement. I remember people publishing lists of public bulletin boards. Can you imagine cataloging the internet now and publishing a list of all the websites!