Website FAQs

Who owns my website?

You should always be the owner of your website. If someone has been hired to work on your website, you have paid them to create something for your company. You have the right to ask for a copy of the site, or ask for something in writing stating that you are the owner of the site.

Who owns the domain name?

The company that requests the name is by right the owner (registrant) of the domain name. To find out if this is set up correctly, you can go to www.networksolutions.com and click the whois search. After entering the domain name you will see a registrant (this should be your company), and three contacts. The other contacts are administrative, technical, and billing. Typically, this is set up so that the owner of the website is also the administrative contact. The web developer or hosting company is the technical contact and any of these can be listed as the billing contact.

What should my home page look like?

The first thing that someone sees is what comes up in the first screen of the first page. Since this is where people usually make a decision on whether or not to go further into your website, this page should have your company name, a short description of your company and the links that will take someone further into your website.

How should I layout my website?

The website should be clearly laid out to show the different areas about your company. Products, Services, Mission, About Us, FAQ, and Contact Us are typical links that go into detail of your company. Additional links should be descriptive enough to let visitors know what they will find on the page, but will need to be short enough to fit on your buttons. If the website is large, or some sections of the site are large, they can be added as sub-categories of an area. Products, for example, can list the main types of products, then someone can go into the specific product from there.

How much information should I have in my website?

This is ultimately up to you. If you have long pages of text, it is a good idea to have a bulleted list at the top that summarizes what you are saying. This will cover the visitors who want to quickly browse what you have, and the additional text will cover the visitors who want to read more information.

Where is my website?

Your hosting company has a server or servers that are connected to high-speed lines where the website can be accessed easily. Depending on your hosting company, the servers can be physically located in Illinois or another part of the country. The important things to consider in a hosting company is that they have one or more high-speed lines going to their facility, that they have a backup generator, and that they have a backup of the website. Some hosting companies have multiple phone companies that they are connected to. This way if one of these things goes down, your website may not necessarily go down.