Websites Really

I dislike misnomers, euphemisms, too. I like calling a spade a spade. One of the things that irritate me is the phrase "free website." This irritates me because there is no such thing. True, you can make your own website and not spend any money but doesn't mean it's free.

In the early days of the web, people would put up anything just because they could. Making your own website could be a hobby. Nobody cared if your page consisted nothing but a Garfield background, your birthday, the name of your school and some pictures of your friends. Now, almost two decades later, people are far more sophisticated. Their websites have to reflect who they are and if anyone opened a page that I just described, they will close that window and move on without another glance.

So what does this mean? This means people who are serious about making a website want their sites to generate hits. They want people to come to their websites. Otherwise it's like building a hotel in the middle of the desert and then making sure that no one hears about it. They do this by locking on to what they know, whether consciously or unconsciously, what surfers are looking for: credibility - a hard commodity to find in the anonymous World Wide Web. The surest thing to gain credibility is in the domain name. If the domain name reflects what the person is looking for, the site gains credibility. There is another reason as well: expediency. A specific domain name is short and is easy to remember. But registering domain names costs money; it's the virtual equivalent of leasing space on a commercial lot.

This isn't enough, to generate hits the site also has to generate interest. This means making the website attractive or at the very least easy on the eyes. This may mean hiring a web designer if the builder is not confident of his own skills. People want to go to a site that is easy to navigate and interesting to watch. There are too many distractions, especially on the web, so the site must be able to hold their interest, sometimes that means having a profession touch.

Most importantly, the site needs to stay relevant. It needs to be constantly updated and kept fresh. A site that is not updated is like a boulder at rest: static, unchanging, dull. Even a Facebook or MySpace profile needs to be tended to. While this may not cost any money (unless a webmaster is hired), it does mean a commitment in time and effort, two things that some people cannot afford.