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In the short and sweet definition of PHP it is a server sided script writing language usually written in HTML. It is a widely-used general purpose scripting language. Of course it is not like ordinary HTML language, PHP script is especially suited for web development and can be put into HTML.  PHP is now officially known as “PHP: HyperText Preprocessor”.

The long story is that PHP orginally derived from Personal Home Page tools, which is now known as PHP:HyperText Preprocessor.  It was created as an alternative to Microsofts Active Server Page (ASP) technology. PHP and ASP both are scripts that can be embedded into a web page with HTML. Before it can be viewed by a user, the web servers “calls” PHP to interpret and perform specific operations for the PHP script.PHP code can query databases, create images, read and write other files and of course talk to remote servers. The possibilites are endless.

PHP can support environments such as Apace and MySQL, this futhers its popularity. however, it is primarily used in Linux web servers.  It can also work in other environments and is supported by an extensive list of databases and web-servers.  PHP popularity has risen due to the different approaches we are taking now to publish sites (Web-publishing).

If you are curious as to how much money you are going to have to dish out for this specific language, the answer is none. PHP is free and offered under an open source license.  It is a great script for use, and if you can I would suggest trying it out.

When you are creating a website it is an option to use meta tags. Meta Tags are placed on the header of the site after the title tag. These tags are used by search engines so that they can more accurately list your site in their list. Although you do not have to use these tags, I suggest it so that your site can be better ranked in the search engines search and list. When people refer to meta tags they are often referring to meta description tag and meta keyword tag.

 These types of tags (meta description and meta keyword) are not seen by the users of your website. Rather they are read by the search engines, for the purpose of providing meta document data.  There are some important tags that you should know:

• meta http-equiv tag
• meta refresh tag
• the meta robots tag
• the meta copyright tag
• meta author tag

These tags are used to give search engines “spider directions” to other parts of your site or other sites.

The next question on your mind might be what do meta tags look like? There are a lot of different types of meta tags, a general tag may look something like this:

<META name=”something” content=”something else”> 

However you do not need the</META> at the end of this tag, like some HTML requires such as a <B> BOLD </B>. Just make sure that there are no breaks because some search engines are a bit testy with breaks. 

Remember that there is no need to file every single page of your website, you only need to do the important or relevant ones. Also, make sure that your description tag does not simply restate your title page, but what the page is about almost like a summary in just a couple of words. Finally, a tag can be in the creation of dynamic documents.

When looking for a hosting company, there are several different types of hosting that you can choose (as I mentioned in “What is Web Hosting?”). Your choice should be based on how you plan on using the site, how much money you want/can spend, and how much time you want/can spend maintaining the servers. If  you consider these three things, you can find a hosting company that will work for and with you to make your site the best possible.

ISP 

First, you must have and Internet Service Provider (ISP) to use the Internet with you site. ISPs are a small amount of free web space to create web pages quickly and easily.  An ISP site is perfect for people who want a small site with low traffic. These sites are normally personal sites,  or sites that are put up for testing and preparation of another site. ISPs normally have rate restrictions and most don’t offer a lot of features with their web space.

Free Web Hosting 

 If you have and ISP that doesn’t offer web space, then I suggest that you consider free web hosting. There are many free hosting providers who can offer additional services. Free web hosting is normally supported by advertising on the site.  This type of hosting is beneficial for personal sites as well as small business sites, because they are supported by advertising. I do not suggest using free hosting if you are serious about conducting business on your site. You may however utilize a free hosting service for running test and preparations on pages.

Standard Paid Hosting 

Standard Paid hosting, need I say more? Usually you will pay a monthly fee for a space and services on providers site. Payments can range from $1-2 to several thousands of dollars, normally though it depends on what type of services you will require. This is a great option for most web-based business.

Domain Hosting 

If your business is small and you don’t have a lot of money to spend on web hosting, I suggest taking the route of Domain Hosting. It can be hard to understand at times, but instead of paying for a web space you would pay for your domain. Then you can have you site hosted wherever you would like. Domain hosting is also known as URL redirection. You can user your ISP or free hosting service and can still accrue the benefits of having a personal web site URL.

Colocation 

A great option for small to medium sized business’s that want to be able to control their own hosting company would be Colocation. The server would be put in a machine room of a larger company and can be connected to their high-speed Internet connection. There are two types of colocation: Managed and Unmanaged. Managed Colocation is like having an IT department in your company, even if the company is small.

Direct Internet Access 

If you company has a large database of information or is interested in  controlling every aspect of their web and Internet access should consider Direct Internet Access. This allows you to host your site yourself. However you are required to have:

1. Web Server Computer
2. Software
3. High-Speed Internet with a dedicated IP address

This options offers most control over a web server. Just be sure to contact you ISP before setting up a direct connection on a DSL or Consumer ISP connection. Direct Internet Access does also require that you spend a lot of time maintaining and updating your information and web site yourself. If you do not have a lot of time to spend, I do not recommend this specific type of hosting.

Each company has different ideas on how they want to use their site. When you do decide what you want your site to do, you then must decide how much money and time you want to spend on your web hosting. I hope that this will aid you in making your decision on what type of hosting would be beneficial to you.

When building a website, we are all faced with the big question, “Do I want to be able to update this site myself, or let someone else do it for me?” This is a hard decision, and sometimes can intimidate a person. Ultimately, if you have put up a site on a free web page server, you probably have had the capability to go onto your site and change information when and if you needed to. This is what content management really is. In a nutshell, the ability to update the site yourself is content management.

There are six phases and 5 roles and responsibilities for content management:

Phases:

1. Create
2. Update
3. Publish
4. Translate
5. Archive
6. Retire

Roles and Responsibilities:

1. Content - Responsible for creating and editing content ( phase 1)
2. Editor - Responsible for fine tuning the content and the style of the delivery, including translation and localization ( Phase 2)
3. Publisher - Responsible for releasing the content for use (phase 3)
4. Administrator - Responsible for managing access permission to folders and files (normally by assigning access rights to users groups and roles) as well as assit and support in various ways (phase 4 and 5)
5. Consumerm, Viewer, or Guest - Person who reads or otherwise takes in content after it is published or shared

The last two phases are the phases in which the content is changed, or saved and replaced by better more updated content. 

You may be asking yourself know “What may I need to update?” which is simple. If you are creating an e-commerce site, you may need to change information on pricing, availability, and/or styles. If your site is not an ecommerce site, but more of an informational site, you could need to change the information about your company like location, phone and fax numbers, products or services offered etc.

Updating a site youself, usually is very beneficial for changing and updating information about your company and its site. However, I do not suggest updating your site if you do not plan on making more than 2 changes a year. If you don’t, it would be a wise decision in my opion if you allow the company who build/hosts your site to do it for you. Not only would it be cost - effective, but it doens’t make sense to learn to do it just to do it a couple of times a year, if even at all.

Omitting useless words can be easy, when you  cut down the first half of your content you really don’t loose anything.  I however suggest that after the first half is cut down, you need to cut down another half. This will allow for easier understanding of the site, as well as have users stay on your site longer. Although, cutting down this much seems hard, you need to be ruthless about it, for a sites usability to be better.
E.B. White’s 17th rule in the Elements of Style states:
Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words; a paragraph should contain no unnecessary sentences for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.

Extra words take up space, with the words just being there it suggest that you need to read everything just to understand what you are trying to convey.  Thing will seem more complicated then they really are and people will be less likely to stay on you site because they do not want to have to think and read a lot when on a site. People will find your pages to be more daunting then they really are.

Krugs third law of usability states that you should get rid of half the words on the page, and then get rid of half of what’s left on the page.  Benefits:

•  Reduces noise level  on the page
•  Makes the useful content more permanent
• *The pages shorter, allowing users to see more of each page at a glance with out scrolling

Reduce your Happy Talk, this is introductory text to a site that is supposed to welcome you to the site, also the Happy Talk is there to inform you how great the site is and what you are going to preview on the site. Happy Talk is self-congratulatory promotional writing, stating nothing useful. Its main focus is to boast about how great they are and not delineating what makes them great. You can have a small amount of happy talk, but try to stay away from too much.

If you do omit the useless words on you site, your viewers will stay longer and continue to return to you site. I recommend the rules that I have given you to best optimize your page and make it user friendly. 

For those who decide to build a web site, many do not understand what web hosting is. An easy explanation that I give is that a web host is a service provider, almost like a cell phone provider. If you don’t have a cell phone provider (like AT&T or T-Mobile) then you can not make or receive calls. This is the same for a web site, if you do not have a web host you can not put your site on the Internet. But web hosting is a little more than just a service provider. A server is connected to the Internet at all times, and can hold a lot of information on different sites.

These servers are given Internet Protocol (IP) numbers so that they can be found by other servers or search engines. These servers hold all of your websites information weather it is an HTML file, graphic files, Cascading Style Sheets (CCS) or Javascripts.  There are several different types of Web Hosting out there:

• Free Web Hosting Services - Free (sometimes) is advertisement supported web hosting and is often more limited when compared to paid hosting
• Shared Web Hosting Service - Where a web site is placed on a server with many other web sites (often thousands) a shared web site may be hosted by a reseller
• Reseller Web Hosting - Allows the client to become a web host themselves, resellers could functions (for individual domains) under a few of the listed types of hostings
• Virtual Dedicated Server - Divides a server into virtual servers, where users can feel like there own dedicated server, however they are really sharing a server with many different web sites
• Dedicated Hosting Service - User get his/her own web server and get full control over it, this doesn’t mean that they own the server (however in some cases they can). The owners will have full administration to the box, and are in control over their own maintenance and security.
• Managed Hosting Service - The user gets his/her own server, but they are not allowed full access to it. This is to ensure the best quality service possible. Typically, they do not own the server it is just leased out to them.
• Colocation Web Hosting Service - Similar to dedicated web hosting service, but the client owns the server. The hosting company provides the space for the server as well as the Internet access, and power for the server. The client would have to have their own personal administrator come to update or make any changes on the server. This is the most powerful and expensive hosting.
• Clustered Hosting - Has multiple servers hosting the same content for better resource content.

There a few things that you should consider when trying to figure out what type or hosting you are interested in. Price and capability by your administrators is one of the top considerations.  Three more things to consider are:

1. Database Server Software
2. Scripting Software
3. Operating System

When considering all of the aspects reviewed above, you can better choose which company you want. You could also search the Internet to find active web hosting message boards that may provide more feed back on what type of web hosting you may need. However you decide on you web hosting company and the type of hosting you may need, I hope that this information provided will help guide and inform you to find the correct hosting for your site.