q: My Website isn’t coming up on screen?

a: It is possible that the server is down. However, if you have hosting with us, our servers usually guarantee 99.95% uptime, so this is not usually the case. The best thing to check is your domain name. Has it expired recently? If you have registered the domain with us, just give us a call and we will check it for you.

q: My website isn’t showing up on Google

a: Just because your website is now live does not mean that it will instantly appear on Google.

First step is getting your site verified on Google.
When One Tree Hill designs a site for you we submit your site to Google and upload a sitemap.

Once your website is submitted it should appear in the Google listings when you type in your domain name. However, it still may not show up for ages. Some websites appear immediately and some take up to 4 months to show up. Google is an unpredictable beast and they use many algorithms for determining how sites are listed and these are constantly changing.

When your site is indexed by Google and your domain appears in the search it will still probably not appear if you do a search with keywords. This is where Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) comes in.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site or a web page (such as a blog) from search engines via “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results as opposed to search engine marketing (SEM) which deals with paid inclusion.
A good SEO strategy is expected to produce results after a 12 month commitment. Hiring a professional to implement SEO can be one of the best investments you make in your website.
If you are interested in SEO, please contact us and we can advise you on SEO packages available.

q: Why does everybody love my website?

a: That is because the uber talented staff at One Tree Hill created it!

q: What is the difference between .com and .com.au domains?

a: Basically, a .com.au domain name identifies you as an Australian business and lots of consumers like to know that they are working with an Australian business, not someone in China or India.

Also,  some search engines filter their results according to where the searcher lives. For example, Google can work out where you are located and when it knows that you live in Australia, it will often place Australian websites higher up the search results than international ones as it assumes that you may be more interested in Australian sites.

If your business wants to attract a more global market then maybe a .com is more suitable.

Having said all of that, why not have both? You can register both the .com and .com.au and have them access the same website

If you register you domain names with us you will find that both .com and .com.au domains are the same price for 2 years.

q: What is the difference between Blogs, Forums and Social Media?

a:

Forums are like social mixers, where people can create or comment on topics and so create an online discussion. They are also called newsgroups, chat groups and discussion threads.  You usually have to sign in to forums and you can opt be notified when someone posts an answer or comment to a topic that you are interested in.

Blogs are like an online diary or journal. They are a collection of posts where the blogger (author) writes articles and may  allow questions and comments from their audience.
They can be authored by an individual or sometimes a team.

Social Networks, like facebook and twitter, are different again. These social networks consist of members that connect through a person’s or business’ relationships and interests, rather that just focused on topic or discussion. It is an easy way to connect to like-minded people and to easily share information.

q: What is a shopping cart?

A shopping cart is a software application that typically runs on the computer where your Web site is located (the Web server), and allows your customers to do things such as searching for a product in your store catalog, adding a selected product to a basket, and placing an order for it.
A shopping cart consists of a database of all your products that you sell, a storefront (web pages) that display the products to your customers and an administration area that allows you to manage the products within your store.

q: What is a Payment Gateway?

A very simple way of understanding exactly what a Payment Gateway in Australia does is to imagine paying for fuel at a service station with your credit card. You place your credit card into a physical terminal and swipe it, the software on the terminal then processes the transaction on behalf of the service station and notifies the store attendant whether the transaction was successful or not. In an online payments scenario a Payment Gateway is the software that processes the transaction on behalf of the merchant. A Payment Gateway in Australia will require you to obtain a merchant account from one of its acquirers (Banks).

q: What is a Merchant Account?

In order to use a Payment Gateway in Australia you will be required to establish a merchant account with a Banks. There are several types of merchant accounts that Australian Banks offer so it’s important to note that you will be looking for an Online Merchant Account to use with a Third Party Payment Gateway. Your Bank should have a list of Third Party Gateways which they support and you should not run into any trouble if you mention that you would like to connect with one of the following Payment Gateways in Australia:

• eWAY
• SecurePay

Once you have established a merchant account you simply pass this information to your Payment Gateway and you will be able to accept payments online.

q: Something not answered here?

If you have any other questions you would like answered, leave a comment below or feel free to fill in the form on the contact page and we will get back to you as soon as we can. Contact.