In today's competitive market if you own a business, you need a website. You should have one as much as you need a telephone # and address.  Many customers have come to expect companies or those offering services to have a website on the Internet.  With many users researching or shopping online, search engines and portals such as Google, Yahoo, AOL, Lycos, GO2NET and others have become the new 'Yellowpages' that many will check first even before the phonebook.  If you cater to people outside your local area it's even more important since the Internet is Global and available online 365 days a year, 7 days a week and 24 hours a day.  Most advertising will never approach the amount of 'presence' a website can offer and a well designed website can lead individuals to your business in a very cost effective way.  At Tech2Hire we will work with you to provide a website that can help you grow your business and showcase your products or service.

For those who are unaware of what getting a 'Dot-Com' involves we have described, below, some of the more frequently asked questions (FAQs) regarding what this involves.  We're happy to discuss your needs more specifically, but, you should be aware that getting one is not significantly difficult nor overly expensive.

Can I get any Dot-Com name?
There are actually other Domain Name extensions other than .COM (.TV, .NET, .ORG, .GOV, etc.) which you can choose from, but, .COM is the most common and most desired.  Since people continue to register specific names and reserve (park) names you may not be able to get the name you want, but, you can find variations and determine if a name is available by performing a WHOIS search (click this link) to determine if a name is taken.  If it's available you can register it so that only you can use it.  You basically 'own' it.

What are all the costs & steps involved?
The standard costs (not necessarily Tech2Hire's) and for almost all websites are DOMAIN NAME REGISTRATION (see above), SETUP FEEs, DESIGN COSTS and HOSTING COSTS. Name registration allows you to have the .COM name and average costs are around $35 a year.  This registration requires renewal every year unless renewed for multiple years and Tech2Hire offers discounts within its package deals or for multi-year registration.  SETUP FEEs are a one-time fee usually around $25-40 and covers the expense of setting up the server, FTP & user access, e-mail accounts, an ethernet address (like a house # on a street) amongst other things to 'get things going'.  WEBSITE DESIGN costs vary depending on the site's complexity, size, content, whether you want e-commerce, graphic artwork and programming.  This can be free if you are able to do all of this yourself or can be from $250 on up for a basic website with a few pages and graphics.  HOSTING is the physically server (machine) where the website design work is placed and is the physical location on the internet where your website exists.  When someone types YourDomain.com, or, clicks on a link to your site from a search engine, or another site, they are automatically pointed to that machine, where the machine in turn, sends the user your homepage to their browser.  Hosting is usually around $19 a month, varying based on the size, complexity and the amount of users you serve.  At Tech2Hire we offer all of these services individually, at competitive rates, as well as SPECIAL PACKAGE deals that combine all these costs, at a discount, and services, to allow you to focus only on your website name, it's content and design without all the headaches and maintenance involved if you did this yourself.

How do people find my site?
Just like opening a storefront business, nobody knows you exist if you don't advertise and let people know who and where you are.  Most people today use search engines and web portals to find businesses.  Submitting to these engines is the first step.  For those active online, posting messages and being active on discussion groups relavent to your site brings in traffic.  Reciprocal links (where you link to someone's site and they link to yours) help increase traffic as well as search engine placement.  Having your website name in local paper & print ads, radio, tv, business cards, handouts, etc. all drive traffic as they have traditionally for phone#s and addresses.  For those sites Tech2Hire has developed we submit the site to multiple search engines, we have various sites we maintain that we add targeted links on, we design pages with specific keywords to increase your search-engine rankings and work with our clients to understand the audience they are trying to reach to drive the right people to the site.  While SPAM MAIL (unsolicited e-mail) is a method people use to drive traffic we do not support or condone this, but, do support and promote those who signup for custom mailing lists or newsletters.

If I have e-mail now how hard is it to get e-mail from my website?
If you already have an e-mail account your site can be automatically setup to forward all the site's e-mail to your current personal e-mail account without your customers knowing it.  Most prefer this since they don't have to change or configure anything if they are already online and operational.  As an example you can have 'sales@yourdomain.com' & 'support@yourdomain.com' both go to 'myhomemail@aol.com' if 'myhomemail@aol.com' is how you get e-mail today.

Can I sell things online?
There are numerous ways to sell things online from your site.  The easiest is to simply offer details, prices and contact information and take orders over the phone, fax or mail providing the user with a printable form they can review or send in.  For secure online transactions things do get a little more involved, but, anyone can have a website that has shopping cart software, 'buyme' buttons and accepts major credit card and electronic payment like Paypal.  The latter clearly involves more cost and time, but, if you have a product(s) which you can sell effectively online the revenue produced and ability to take orders while you sleep 365/24/7 is invaluable.   Tech2Hire has designed various sites that utilize merchant accounts and shopping cart software and can make this happen for you.

How do I change things on the site?
Depending on your skill level, and what is to be changed, this can be done by the user or under request by the web developer.  We provide FTP (file transfer protocal) access that allows you to change things yourself, or, we can work with you to provide regular changes as part of the monthly hosting fees.  Tech2Hire has made changes for clients with upcoming events, pictures from events, monthly specials, latest fish catches & fishing reports, notification messages, etc. and can work with you to find a solution which works best for you.

How do I get pictures or graphics for my site?
With so many entry-level, high-quality, scanners and digital cameras adding pictures or scanning in existing ad work, logos, designs and text is feasible for many clients.  However, Tech2Hire does offer professional quality DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY from outdoor/on-site to studio work.  We have professional graphic tools and graphic artists who can design logos, modify digital artwork or photos sent to use to be incorporated on the site's webpages

Do I need to do all these things myself?
You can do some or none.  Tech2Hire can do everything for you more effectively and has included all the basic requirements in their various packages so that you can focus on your business and not in creating, setting up and maintaining your site.