Website Repair, Design, and E-commerce on a reasonable budget for startup or homebased businesses.. Friendly, affordable service. Over 10 years experience. The Darrow Company.net and kcwebman.com. Plain English spoken here.

How do search engines work?

What is really happening behind the scenes when you type "find big red balloons" into a search engine such as Yahoo? Many of the most important search engines don't actually search the web at all. Instead they keep a big database of descriptions of websites. So when you do a search for "big red balloons" the search engine looks only at it's own database for "big", "red", and "balloons" and spits out the names of websites that contain those keywords. So only websites that have been previously submitted to Yahoo's database will be found by internet users. The key then is getting your website listed in these databases. Yahoo.com uses such a database system and is the single most important search engine on the net. And you must know how to submit your website to Yahoo in order to get in their database.
Other engines are known as "crawlers" and they automatically surf the web day and night scanning websites. They memorize website names, descriptions, and keywords and they put that info into their databases. But crawlers don't even come close to finding all the zillions of websites out there. Again, you must know how to submit your website (along with its description and technical info) to the important crawler engines such as Excite.com.
If you do not promote your website to the major search engines nobody will find it. Other alternative forms of getting noticed are banner advertising and listing in business directories. I don't use those blinking banners to advertise at this time, but I do submit websites by hand to the major and most important engines such as Yahoo, Alta Vista, Excite, Britannica, Go, Northern Light, Infoseek as well as targeted business listings, special interest listings, and shopping lists.
Note: Beware of companies offering cheap software that will "automatically" promote your website to "hundreds of search engines" for a low fee. 99% of internet surfers use only the top 8 or so search engines. These top engines tend to reject this "automatic software" because they want to make sure that each website they accept into their databases is legit. Always submit to the major engines carefully and by hand (or let me do it for you). If you goof around, or use cheap software with Yahoo, for example, they won't accept you and you will be hard pressed to get a second chance with them. Thousands of people per month submit websites and only the sites that qualify will get accepted. One important thing to remember is to never submit an incomplete website to a major search engine as they will likely reject it. There are many other guidelines as well. I am generally pretty successful getting a client's website listed in the major search engines. The amount of time I spend doing this will vary with the website plan you choose.

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What does it mean to "Register a domain name"?

A domain name is just the name of your website's location, "KCWebsites.com" in the case of this website. A domain name is sometimes (loosely) called a URL. A domain name is like a shorthand form of a postal address. Computers on the internet translate an easy to remember name, like KCWebsites.com into the actual address that a computer can understand such as "512.22.4242.1111". A handful of companies, such as Network Solutions, keep track of every single domain name and its corresponding address. So when you type "KCWebsites.com" into your computer Network Solutions cross references that name and tells your computer where on the internet to find the server that actually houses the website.
Network Solutions and other companies charge a yearly fee for maintaining one's domain name in their databases. To register one needs to first find a domain name that isn't already taken, provide information about the actual address (which server actually houses the associated website), provide a technical contact and other technical data, and then pay a fee.

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How does e-commerce really work and is it right for me?

In deciding if you want to use e-commerce on your website, answer these questions first:
Do I offer a service (and not a product) such as carpet cleaning or lawyering? Do I offer a product which is high-dollar but low in volume?   Am I expecting 1 or 2 sales a month? Do I want to keep my overhead as low as possible?
If you answered yes to any of these I recommend against e-commerce because of the overhead required. If you have an inventory of low cost items that you will be selling in large quantities, such as a flower shop, then I strongly do recommend e-commerce.
e-commerce makes it incredibly easy for people to click-and-buy and it demonstrates that you've invested real time into your website. Make your decision based on the initial setup fees and monthly fees required for e-commerce. Also keep in mind there are extra complexities in using e-commerce. I will try to explain those complexities below.

Firstly, you must have a merchant bank account to utilize e-commerce. There is no way around this (unless you decide to use X.com). The credit card companies require each vender to have one. (You are the vendor.) A merchant account is a special kind of bank account which is able to accept credit card deposits. Whether you use your local bank or an "internet bank" to hold your merchant account you will have to submit an application, pay a fee of about $50 (depending on the bank) and wait a few days for approval. This process is between you and the bank, so, regrettably I cannot help you with this aspect. This is the case no matter which internet provider you choose. The bank will charge a small monthly fee and will keep about 2% to 4% of all your credit card sales. This is universal and unavoidable. Also, what a lot of people may not tell you is that as a credit card vendor you are responsible for all disputed charges.
Secondly you must have a shopping cart system on your website, a secure server (called SSL), and a thing called a Gateway. The gateway is a 3rd party's website that actually grabs the credit card numbers from your website and makes the deposit into your merchant account directly. (This process can be skipped using a secure email system I've developed and by calling the orders in over the phone. Ask me if you're interested.) There are a number of Gateway services and they all charge a monthly fee, usually around $35.
Finally you need an internet provider who can put your shopping cart on your website, create a secure server, and tie your secure server to the Gateway. That's where I come in.    I can provide you the Shopping Cart and secure server for an additional setup fee and a nominal monthly fee, depending on the number of products you sell and the plan you choose. You will also need to sign a contract with the 3rd party providing the Gateway. Other than that I can pretty well shield you from all the tech stuff. So you pay 3 parties monthly: Me, the Gateway provider, and the bank.
Now, all this is probably not as complicated as it sounds, but you really do benefit from having someone like me putting it all together for you and explaining it as you go. I spent a good deal of time myself getting the answers about who charges what, where the money goes, and what is required from the vendor. (If you want proof, visit IBM.com and try to figure out what to do; I know I had trouble!)    Hopefully I can translate everything and readily impart it to you. And that is what I mean by, "You get a person who speaks English" here.   Most companies can provide a shopping cart and even a secure server, but when you need help with the merchant account or gateway they will literally tell you to call someone else.
There are a few companies that do offer the "whole package" at a premium. One local company charges $1200 for a "basic" (very basic) shopping cart website and a $700 nonrefundable Gateway setup fee! My fees are considerably less.
Though it is complicated to setup e-commerce is an incredibly powerful tool to generate sales, sales from people you'll never even meet or talk to. Once in place an online store virtually runs itself -- showing customers your goods, taking their orders and their money, and thanking them for their patronage. The amount of money transacted over the internet via e-commerce continues to grow at least 50% per year and is already in the billions of dollars per year.

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Why is there always a fee for hosting?

Below is an excerpt from an email of mine explaining hosting
fees to a client.

"Hosting fees cover our costs for things such as
1. The domain name yearly fees. We pay from $15 to $70 per year to secure and keep a unique website name for you.
2. Server space. I have to rent a place on the web to store your website; it isn't quite free yet. (The 'Server' is a computer with a special, high speed connection to the Internet. I rent disk space from a company called Kingwood for the use of their server space. Every website has to reside on a server somewhere.) This is a large part of the hosting cost.
3. Site maintenance. I log on to every customer's website every day to make sure everything is always up and running. If a server should ever go down I have to alert Kingwood (or whichever company I am using) and get them aware of the problem and get it fixed ASAP. Any good company will monitor your website in this way. Also, as minor changes are made to a site new security issues are always brought up and I prefer to be diligent about monitoring security. All of these things tend to consume time.
I don't ever want to leave a client out in the cold after he makes a one-time purchase. I'd much rather charge a nominal fee and feel right about taking care of him months or even years down the line."

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