KLJ Website Creations

This is a question we often get asked when people are setting up their first website.

For our customers in Australia we recommend Webcity. They were recommended to us some years ago as THE Australian hosting company to go with and we’ve used them for our Australian clients ever since. Their services are AFFORDABLE, which unfortunately is rare in Australia, and their support is excellent. On the few occasions that I’ve had to contact Webcity they’ve been back in touch within a couple of hours at most. Australian hosting can be important for Australians since they was good support at all times of the day and night and there is nothing worse than needing to talk to a support person to find out that you are calling someone who can only take a message and someone will get back to you in the morning – their morning not ours! They also have fantastico in their Cpanel so it’s very easy to set up Content Management Systems such as WordPress and Joomla.

What about if you have more than one domain?

The issue with having more than one domain is that you usually have to pay for separate hosting with each domain. That’s not true of Hostgator. When you buy the Hostgator Baby hosting that allows you to have many domains on one account. We have several websites and we’ve found this to be the most cost effective solution. They are based in the USA but we’ve still had excellent support when we’ve needed it at any time of the day. Like Webcity they have Cpanel and Fantastico so it’s really simple to set WordPress and Joomla websites.

As a special deal if you use coupon KLJHostgator when ordering your hosting with Hostgator you’ll receive up to $10 off your hosting package.

It’s really up to you which hosting is ‘best’ for your website but these two companies are certainly worth your consideration.

Please note that the links are affiliate links so that we will receive a small commission if you decide to use their services. However we are recommending them because we use them and know how good they are!

When thinking about the colours for your website you want to think about your clients and their cultural background since different colours can have different meanings. You also want to think about the kind if image that you want to portray. There are colour fashions but be careful not to choose something that will be quickly updated unless you are going to be changing your colour themes on a regular basis. Here is a brief guide to colours for your website.

RED is the hottest colour. It conjures up love, passion, power, energy action, courage, sex, drama, leadership, war and danger. It is used for very important occasions such as the red carpet for VIP’s. Red can be used to get people’s attention (such as traffic lights) so used in small doses can be more effective than in large quantities.

ORANGE often produces a love or hate reaction so be careful when using it.  It’s fun and attention grabbing so can be used for high lighting rather than used as a main colour.

YELLOW is a personal favourite colour of mine but as you can see it can be hard to show up.  It signifies sunshine, joy, happiness, energy and stimulates cheerfulness. However yellow can also be seen in some hazard signs and so can signify danger or caution.

GREEN is the colour of nature, fertility, life, money and safety. It’s a calming and peaceful colour and of course used extensively now to promote green energy. Be careful that you don’t use greens that are associated with institutions which are seen in a negative light.

BLUE is the coolest colour and is often favourite colour with men. It is calm, dependable, conservative, stable, cleanliness but if used a lot can feel cold.  Some studies have shown that blue suppresses appetite so avoid using blue if selling food.

PURPLE is a combination of the energy and vibration of red with the calm stability of blue. It is a popular colour with children. It is used convey wealth and extravagance and is thought by some to be the ideal colour.

PINK in the West signifies female, romance, hope and awareness. Vibrant pinks show a lot of energy in a similar way to red.

WHITE is the colour of purity, innocence and goodness. It actually isn’t a colour but is the presence of all the colours. White can be useful for a background since it’s clear to see darker writing on it but it can also be seen as very stark if used too much.

BLACK can mean sophistication, power and elegance but also fear and evil such as the bad guys wearing black hats.  Black isn’t actually a colour but is the absence of all the colours of the spectrum. Black (or dark) backgrounds can make text difficult to read on websites.

GRAY can convey maturity, old age, security and sadness. Because the colour is so neutral it can be seen to be boring but makes a good background for vibrant colours.

If you are not sure what colour combinations you want together for your website you can view colour combinations and try out new schemes at color combos.

For a website to be seen on the internet you need a domain name, which is like an address on the internet (similar to how a property has an address so that it can be found) and a hosting account. The hosting account is where the information for the website is actually held.

The domain name and hosting account can be bought from the same company or can be from different companies. If you buy the hosting from a different company the DNS at the domain company needs to be changed to point to the hosting. This is actually a simple operation and only takes a few minutes.

This is a question we often get asked since clients often like us to register the domains for them.

Here are the main steps:

1. What do you want your domain to be called?

You may want to name it after your company or you may want to name it after the product or service that your company provides.

For example KLJ widgets could be KLJwidgets.com.au or websitewidgets.com.au.

The advantage of having the domain describe your company is that it may be found more easily in search engines.

2. Where are your clients?

If your clients are in Australia then you may only want a .com.au domain name, but if you are selling globally or think that you may in the future then you’ll want to register the .com domain name as well.

If you have chosen an Australian domain you can check whether it is available at:

Aus Registry for Australian websites or Go Daddy for other websites. If you check in a search engine you will find other whois websites.

3. How to register a domain

For Australian websites there are only a certain number of accredited registrars and the list can be found at AUDA which is the Australian Domain Name Adminstrator.

Domains for other countries such as .com can also be bought from some Australian sites but compare prices since some American websites sell domain much cheaper than Australian ones.

Some Australian registrars sell through resellers and here is a few I compared today. Please check the resellers website for full information on the domain and hosting packages. As you can see there is a wide variety of prices so chose the one that suits your business.

We are happy to help with any questions regarding domain name registration.
Joomla and WordPress extensions can work better on Linux servers than Windows servers when it comes to hosting.

These are the minimum requirements for Joomla 1.5:

The minimum versions of the various constituent parts of these server components that are required are as follows:
PHP 4.3.10
MySQL 3.23.x or above
Apache 1.3 or above

For more information check on the joomla website

Your host needs a couple of things to use wordpress:

PHP version 4.3 or greater

MySQL version 4.0 or greater

To check for up to the minute minimum requirements check at:

http://wordpress.org/about/requirements/

An email from the wordpress website can be sent to your host to check whether you have the minimum requirements.

I’m interested in running the open-source WordPress <http://wordpress.org/> blogging software and I was wondering if my account supported the following:

• PHP 4.3 or greater
• MySQL 4.0 or greater
• The mod_rewrite Apache module

Thanks!

If you have Fantastico and Cpanel then it’s VERY easy to load wordpress, but if you need some help simply contact us.

The basic demo websites for wordpress and joomla are now online and will be changing over the next few days to add more applications to show what they can do.

The links are on your right under the demo section.

There are also links to live sites to show what live websites can look like using wordpress and joomla, and more will be added over time.