A domain name is the name you type into the address bar of a browser (such as Internet Explorer or Firefox) to get to a site on the web. For example: lastsolutions.com.au, google.com.au, yahoo.com.au are all domain names.

A good domain name is short (1 to 3 words), easy to remember, and representative of your business.

Hosting (also known as Web site hosting, Web hosting, and Webhosting) is the business of housing, serving, and maintaining files for one or more websites. More important than the computer space that is provided for website files is the fast connection to the Internet. Most hosting services offer connections on T1 lines. Typically, an individual business hosting its own site would require a similar connection and it would be expensive. Using a hosting service lets many companies share the cost of a fast Internet connection for serving files.

Your email address is a valuable tool to market your business. Make it work for you - not for Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, Bigpond, Optus, or TPG.

Customers expect your business to have a domain name and website. An address like your_name@your_company.com tells them you're a serious business person with an online domain (your_company.com) where they can find you. The words that come after the @ sign make an important statement about your business and how your customers see you.

Benefits of having your own domain email include:

• Name Recognition & Branding

  Having your own domain email is an easy way to promote your company. Your prospects see your name with every email. The more they see your name, the more they’ll think of you and the easier it is for them to remember you.

• Customer Trust

  Consistent marketing builds trust, and so does meeting your customers’ expectations. They expect to see your domain name after the @ sign in the email. It says you’re professional and operate an established business.

• Easy to Find You Online

  Customers will type in the domain part of your email address (the part that comes after the @ sign) to find you online, often when they’re ready to buy. If your email says comcast.com or yahoo.com at the end, they can’t easily find you. And if they can’t find you, they can’t buy from you!

• You, Not Your ISP, Own Your Email Address

  Your email address stays with you. You don't have to change it if you move or change your Internet Service Provider (ISP).

• Save Money on Marketing Materials

  You won’t need to reprint your business cards, letterhead, signage or other marketing materials if you move or change ISPs or web hosts. You own the email address and it goes where you go.

• Build Marketing Momentum

  You’ll build marketing momentum by using a consistent email address that doesn’t change over time. Old customers can easily reach you again.

A custom design is one that is made from scratch, completely unique to you and your business. The alternative is a site made from a theme, or a pre-designed template.

So what does Custom Web Design include?

• Consultation
• Research and Analysis
• Planning
• Innovation
• Architecture
• Implementation
• Monitoring

Page layout is the geometry of a page. It will help us to define how many regions will appear and how they are visually organized.

It depends on what you're doing with your website, but we definitely recommend you a plan for this. Content is critical for optimization and "fresh" or new content is an important factor for ranking.

If you have a small business brochure website you might probably want to update twice a year some pages on your website, you might also have a page to display the latest news on your website and you can add a couple of notes once a month or every two months if you want.

For e-commerce or database websites you might update or add content more frequently, those kind of websites are build to have those changes as need it. In any case if you're doing optimization, you might want to talk with our optimization people about the importance of getting new information on your website and what will be the best way to do it without having problems with the code and content to optimize your website.

It means the ease with which users can perform the tasks associated with your web site. Think of it as the quality of a user's experience when interacting with a product or system. When we're developing or creating a website, we try to keep things simple for your clients/prospects, if we keep it simple for them, then it will become a good website and it will invite people to contact you. Simple doesn't mean low quality, it means doing all that is possible to make it better and understandable.

We can integrate the most common methods on our e-commerce websites, however you might have a specific request and it might take some time to study that specific case. We're open to talk with you and help you during the integration process but we work must together during the process. It may impact the amount of time we initially defined at the start of the project. So keep that in mind and try to keep shipping instructions simple and use common payment getaways providers. Common things make life easier.

For domain owner that need to setup pop3 email in Ms Outlook, here are the steps to setup POP3 email account in microsoft Outlook:

1. Start your Ms Outlook Express
2. Click on Tools -> Accounts (Internet Accounts Dialog will appear)
3. Click on Add - Mail (Internet Connection Wizard Dialog will appear)
4. Enter your Display name and click next
5. Enter your email address ex: me@yourdomain.com and click Next
6. Select POP3 for your incoming mail server, key in your incoming server and outgoing mail server and click Next (Most of the time these server are mail.yourdomain.com)
7. Enter full email address in Account name, and your password. (check the Log on using Secure Password Authentication** (SPA) if your server use this ) and Click Next
8. It's done!

* You can get your incoming mail server and outgoing mail server from your web hosting service provider.

** You can also ask your web hosting service provider if your server need SPA for email access

There are many static websites on the Internet, you won't be able to tell immediately if it is static, but the chances are, if the site looks basic and is for a smaller company, and simply delivers information without any bells and whistles, it could be a static website. Static websites can only really be updated by someone with a knowledge of website development. Static websites are the cheapest to develop and host, and many smaller companies still use these to get a web presence.

Advantages of static websites

• Quick to develop
• Cheap to develop
• Cheap to host

Disadvantages of static websites

• Requires web development expertise to update site
• Site not as useful for the user
• Content can get stagnant

Dynamic sites on the other hand can be more expensive to develop initially, but the advantages are numerous. At a basic level, a dynamic website can give the website owner the ability to simply update and add new content to the site. For example, news and events could be posted to the site through a simple browser interface.

Dynamic features of a site are only limited by imagination. Some examples of dynamic website features could be: content management system, e-commerce system, bulletin / discussion boards, intranet or extranet facilities, ability for clients or users to upload documents, ability for administrators or users to create content or add information to a site (dynamic publishing).

Advantages of dynamic websites

• Much more functional website
• Much easier to update
• New content brings people back to the site and helps in the search engines
• Can work as a system to allow staff or users to collaborate

Disadvantages of dynamic websites

• More expensive to develop
• Hosting costs a little more

Summary

Many sites from the last decade are static, but more and more people are realising the advantages of having a dynamic website. Dynamic websites can make the most of your site and either use it as a tool or create a professional, interesting experience for your visitors.

e-commerce website is where you are selling products on your website. Websites like e-bay and amazon are perfect example of e-commerce website. Such websites are collection of products or services from different manufacturers.

Whereas a service website is one which is offering a company's service or product... It is actually reflecting a service provider on the web.

Technically a ecommerce site might require many programming aspects like DBs, payment gateway, secure transactions etc. However a service site may be a simple one presenting the users with the information about the business.

In more, If you run an ecommerce website, you need targeted SEO with landing pages adherent to each product or service. You would then want to optimize those pages for the keywords which your prospects are likely to search when they need your products/services.

Building Flash-powered websites is wrong. Storing your content in Flash movies is wrong. Implementing site navigation in Flash is wrong.

Then why are there so many Flash sites? They look pretty with all those neat vector graphics, gradients, animations and cool sound effects. Flash is the favorite toy of big designer studios and numerous amateur graphic artists alike. Flash is visually attractive, and in general attractive websites are more successful than the ugly ones (notable exceptions: craigslist.org and plentyoffish.com). But this is not the case of Flash websites. All the benefits of the nice outlook are overridden by the disadvantages in terms of SEO and usability.

5 Reasons Not To Use Flash Website

1. Flash requires bandwidth

Despite of the DSL Internet access being available almost everywhere, there are still lots of people surfing the Net via dialup or other limited bandwidth connection. Flash files, especially those using sound effects, embedded movies or bitmap images, can take a while to load.

2. Disabled back button

Some Flash designers use meta refreshes or other tricks to disable browser’s Back button. As the famous usability expert Jacob Nielsen says, ‘Back button is the second most important navigation element after hyperlinks’. People not able to use Back button will click the third most important navigation element – that X button in the top right. Besides, if you are going to promote a Flash site via PPC, you should know that Google AdWords doesn’t approve pages with disabled back button.

3. Flash ignores users needs

Whereas the ground rules of marketing emphasize the concentration on the users’ needs, Flash websites ignore them. Take the infamous site intros and splash screens that are as much annoying as the 45 minutes of advertising and previews in cinemas. Or another example: the sound effects – they are can be especially inappropriate and harmful when you are browsing the Net from a cubicle in a quiet office or from home in the late hours.

4. Problems with third-party Flash developers

Unless you do Flash yourself, you might face some serious troubles with developers. Some of them code their project to prevent them from editing, thus making you to hire them over and over again as you need to do even the smallest modifications. Aaron Wall in his SEOBook (a highly recommended SEO reading) describes a case of a Flash developer who disabled the back button and then asked $4000 from his client to re-enable it, although the problem was caused by his own incompetence.

5. Search engines do not like Flash

And perhaps the most important: not every search engine is able to crawl and index the content of Flash movies. Even those that can often do it with errors. This is in particular the case of a website fully implemented in Flash as a single file. Search engines just wouldn’t be able to direct visitors to the proper page within that file.

What is Flash really good for? Banners and ads – it provides far more useful features then the traditional gif animation. Online games – remember the ‘Yeti Sports’? Flash technology – the Flash videos – for video blogs.

But as a website engine – Flash is evil!

CMS or a 'Content Management System' quite literally allows you to control and manage the content within your web site - without technical training.

Using this uncomplicated system you can very easily add, delete images and edit text in your web site on the fly.

You can also have an unlimited number of pages and a full site-search engine. With Last Solutions Web Design you can have a highly professional CMS web site at a very reasonable price indeed!