• Starting an internet Presence seems like a daunting task.  Where do I start, designing my web site?  Any web site designer is going to charge you for his time.  Very few designers, any more, will bid your work as a finished product.  Obviously, the more time the designer spends on you site, the more your internet presence is going to cost.
   
• Another way to view this concept is to realize that "The more time I can spend on my site, the less the web designer will have to spend".  That will mean that the site will cost me less in the long run.  Even if you know absolutely nothing about web design, there are many things you can do to help the designer with his job, and consequently, he will spend less time on some pretty mundane tasks, like finding the appropriate links to include on your site.
   
• Having designed and implemented many sites, the first step a business needs to take is to figure out what you want to say on the site.  Unlike a high school English assignment, where you had to do a three page paper, it should be fairly obvious What you want to say.  Leave the How part of the equation up to the Web Designer to worry about
   
• There are only about six different types of web sites.  A brief description will enable you and your web designer decide which kind is for you.  The kind of site directly reflects on the cost of getting it on line.  A billboard site is fairly inexpensive to do.  A full-blown eCommerce site, with secure access and credit card payment options, costs significantly more.  The maintenance aspect of a Newspaper publishing type site may be inexpensive to put on line, but the continuing maintenance costs are high.  The form Web Site Types can be viewed below, or downloaded in either Word Perfect or Microsoft Word formats.  The more thorough your answers are to the questions on the form, the better idea your web designer will have about the expectations of your site.
   
• Once you know the type of site you want, you need to do everything you can on your end to make the web designer's job easier (and consequently less expensive.)  Regardless of the type of site you want, most web sites have many common elements.  Most Have:
   
  • A Links section, which lists other sites related to yours in some way or other.  They could even be sites that you find interesting, but not related to your business.
  • A Frequently Asked Questions page.  Commonly Abbreviated FAQ, these pages answer questions you often are asked on the telephone.  If someone accessing your site saves you ten minutes a month answering the same question on the phone, it is indeed worth including this section on your web site.
  • an eMail or Contact page where you can list all of the phone numbers and email addresses involved with your site.
  •  The form, Web Site Design Checklist, below, will help you with sorting all of these out.  Again, the more time you spend narrowing down the scope of research that the web designer does, the less it will cost you  to implement your website.  The form Web Site Design Checklist can be viewed below, or downloaded in either Word Perfect or Microsoft Word formats.  The more thorough your answers are to the questions on the form, the better idea your web designer will have about the expectations of your site.
     
• Domain Name Registration:  One of the most important aspects of your web site is the selection of a domain Name.  With over a billion web sites extant in the world today, most of the good names have already been taken.  Some corporations have paid dearly to buy their domain name from some enterprising individual who had the foresight to purchase it.  There are four main extensions to a domain name.

  .com- commercial sites	.org - organizational sites
  .gov - governmental sites	.net - network sites

  • Recently, some others have been added .tv and .biz being the most common.  However, .tv is the extension for an island country in the Pacific, and .biz has proved to be quite unpopular at this time.

  • You are, however, left with a few options.  For the sake of brevity, if your company name is Worldwide Widgits, Inc., widgits.com may be available.  Odds are, however, that it is not.  Somebody may have taken it already.  You can check the availability of the domain name by checking several sites that do this.  Check domain name availability with a search engine like google.com

  • If the name is taken, you could consider using mywidgits.com.  It is an alternative, albeit somewhat awkward to use.

  •  Another domain name alternative would be to use worldwide.com  or wwidgits.com or even worldwidewidgits.com. 

  • Our counsel is to go with something shorter, rather than longer, and to stay within the .com level of domain names.  Even if widgits.biz is available, most people have no idea that there are any other types of domain names besides .com, and that is going to hurt the acceptance of the domain name with the people you are trying to reach.

  • This input should be given to the web designer.  It is far easier for him to register the domain name as part of the service he is providing you, because he will have to also have to establish a server connection - where the routers and searchers will be able to find worldwidewidgits.com.  You can break up the domain name by playing around with  the bold or italic fonts in the code.  Which looks better?

  worldwidewidgits.com	WorldwideWidgits.com
  WorldwideWidgits.com	WorldwideWidgits.com
  worldwidewidgits.com	WorldwideWidgits.com

  • Remember, domain names are not case sensitive, so it does not matter which of the above you use, but be consistent in the use of it from day one.

  • As a side note, once your domain name has been established, be sure to include it on all letterhead, business cards (with email addresses) and any other promotional material you have.  People will not visit your web site unless they know about it, and they won't know about it unless you tell them about it.

• Finally, leave the exact technical considerations up to the web designer.  This is what you are paying him for.  He will know the best way to design the structure of the site.  Let him do his job, but don't be afraid to make suggestions along the way.
   

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In case you would like to know, the actual design time on this site, having 6 pages and many links and graphics was just under 5 hours.