Whose website is it anyway?

By Bob Schwartz, CRS, GRI ©2007 Promotions Unlimited All rights reserved.

Everyone knows the Internet is like the Wild West. There are scams, schemes, and suckers out there in cyberspace. How does one take advantage of the real opportunities while avoiding the downsides?

The easy answer is to be careful; be very careful! Most important, investigate & verify. Below are some common Internet scams used on attorneys:

Giant practice or only practioner, you should have a website. Your website should be promoted in your ads, on your letterhead, and on business cards. The critical components of a proper website are your own top level domain name, a properly designed site and dependable hosting for your site.



A.Buy your own top level domain name. For example, a top level domain is www.sanddiegolawyerforyou.com . Domains such as www.sandiegolawyerforyou.com/bob-schwartz.htm , and www.websitetrafficbuilders/law/bob-schwartz.htm are an examples of sub-domains. Sub-domains are part of top-level domains and are sometimes offered free as an enticement to buy other services. The problem with sub-domains is that you are not the owner of the domain and any advertising or promotion you do for the subdomain, mostly benefits the top-level domain. The same can also be said for “free” domain package deals. The proper way to secure a top level is to first check availability, and then register the name (URL) for at least three to five years!



B.Domain Hosting – Now that you have your own domain name you will need a place to host it. First, you should check for an uptime guarantee. I recommend you do NOT even consider a hosting plan that does not guarantee at least 99.9% uptime! The cost here depends on a number of factors, the most valuable of which are the amount of space you need for your site and some extra for future growth, the number of email accounts available, statistics package for analyzing your site’s traffic, monthly data transfer, and if you want a dedicated IP.

I suggest for most small firms and independent practices a basic package that provides approximately 25 GB data transfer, five email accounts, 500 MB of disk space and a good statistics package. The cost for such a plan should typically be about $5.50 per month when paid on a yearly basis.



C.Website Design – Again, the cost heavily depends on the site’s size requirements and design features. For the vast majority of single practitioners and small firms, the cost here should be approximately $400 to $600.

Site Maintenance – This should be very minimal for most. Contact your local Junior college for affordable assistance or if you are a hands-on person, look into Microsoft’s FrontPage. This is a very popular program with probably any feature you’ll need. Knowledge of HTML, the basic programming language of Internet websites, is not needed.

Copyright 2007 Promotions Unlimited. All rights reserved.

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