Question: I would like to have a web site for my business. What do you need to get me started?

Answer: Have a general idea of the mood you would like to present for your site. Do you want your guests to be greeted in a formal or informal atmosphere? What kinds of fonts, graphics, and pictures did you have in mind? How do you want to organize any text that will accompany graphics? Do you want something to be purchased from your site, or is it for information only? What other tasks do you wish your web site to accomplish?

Answer: URL stands for uniform resource locator. It is your unique address on the web. Every page on every site has a URL.

Answer: My domain name is arkvalwebworks. It is located between http:// and .com in the URL. Main menu categories might be listed as arkvalwebworks.com/services.htm and they are under arkvalwebworks' domain. Like children are under a parent's domain.

Question: How much does it cost to register a domain name?

Answer: It can cost anywhere from $13.99 to $35.00 a year to register a domain name. Domain name registration is provided at our cost when customers choose us to develop their web site. We recommend that customers research several variations of names because domain name availability is limited.

Question: Why shouldn't I put all the information I want available for my site on one page?

Answer: There are several reasons why that is not a good practice. Your guests will have to wait a long time for your page to load, so you'll lose a lot of them before they even enter your site. Visitors don't like to read every single word of content to find what they are looking for. They want content organized into easily found and understood categories and pages.

Question: How should I organize my content? 

Answer: On the internet content is king and consistency is queen. What you have to say, and how you organize it can be likened to the way a good king organizes his realm efficiently and effectively. Consistency is queen because design, navigation, and layout remain clean, organized, and the same throughout the site, only changing for good reason.

Question: How can I get in the top ten results of search engine query?

Answer: A place to start would be to pay one of the companies that guarantees high placement. Be prepared to pay a high price as well. Additionally, that may not even be enough because the search engines are changing the criteria they use to search for information. A more practical approach is to develop your title tags, keywords, alt tags, and link title tags so search engines find them; and develop a strategy for receiving reciprocal links.

Answer: Yes, and no. Yes, you may leave it alone once it is posted on the internet; but you will almost be guaranteed less than satisfactory results. Success on the internet depends on getting visitors to your site, having those visitors refer your site to others through linking and email, getting those visitors to return often, and providing content those visitors find useful. Guests like to see new things when they return to a site so it is best to make frequent additions.

Question: If I put a site on the internet, will it make me a millionaire over night?

Answer: It could happen; but most "over night" success stories took years of sacrifice on behalf of the beneficiary. The internet is no exception. Most enterprises that make the internet work for them devote considerable time and resources toward that purpose. That said, if you have a unique idea, product, or service to offer there is no better medium available to reach a larger audience than the web.

Question: Several web masters have advised me that I should include something free on my site to attract visitors. What could I offer my guests that would be free?