CMS

Content Management System - a backend system that will allow you to securely log in and make updates to your site content. There are several low-cost solutions available now that should mean that having the ability to manage your own content shouldn’t bump the site cost up too much.

Microsite

A mini-site, usually linked to from your main site, that contains targetted information about a single topic. Can be opened in a new window, or use a different design to the parent site. As long as the site is clearly still part of your overall brand, users will be comfortable with being taken to a microsite.

URL / Subdomain

URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator, which is a long-winded way of saying ‘website address’.
A subdomain is a prefix for a URL. For example:
www.bookstart.co.uk is a URL.
get-dads-reading.bookstart.co.uk is a URL with a subdomain. Subdomains can point to
completely new websites, or sections of existing sites. Subdomains can be useful if you have a well-known URL already and want an easy way of promoting a new service. eg mail.google.com

Web2.0

This has been an internet buzz-phrase over the last year, and essentially refers to the current trend of websites whose content is mostly generated by their users in the form of comments/discussion, articles, blog entries etc.

Hosting

When your website is ready to go live, it’s going to need somewhere to live. There are hundreds of service providers that will provide hosting space for your website at very competitive rates - an average sized website with reasonable traffic levels should be able to be hosted for under £10 per month.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

Thousands of websites launch every day and the way a lot of people find them is via a search engine (Google, Yahoo, MSN). If you’re operating in a highly competitive sector it may be very hard to compete for the first few entries of a search results page, but sites can be put together to give them the best chance of achieving a high position in a set of search results. There are now companies set up specifically to help with SEO, so if ‘natural’ (ie unpaid for) search results are important to you it may be worth retaining a portion of your budget for this service.

It’s also worth noting that if you’re serious about optimisation and want to use a third-party service, you should probably engage them at the same time as your designers, so that you can all work together.

//BELLAMYSTUDIO / 07939 597934 / PAUL@BELLAMYSTUDIO.COM