How to Build Your First Website

You know you need a website for your new business, but you’ve been putting it off because the task seems overwhelming or intimidating.

Here’s a short primer on what you need to know about building a website, along with the resources for getting started.

Two basic types of websites apply to most new or small businesses: informational and e-commerce.
An informational website serves as a marketing tool to help build awareness about your products, services, and company. An e-commerce site will enable you to sell your products or services directly from your website and accept credit card or other payments online. Informational websites are relatively easy to get up and running. E-commerce sites are a bit more complex.

Before you do anything, think about what you want your website to accomplish. Do you want something relatively simple that customers can access for information on your products? Or do you envision something more sophisticated, with e-commerce, bulletin boards, blogs or other features? Once you narrow your focus, you can decide whether you want to tackle the project yourself or hire a professional to coordinate the tasks for you. Generally speaking, these tasks include domain name registration, website design, website hosting, search engine optimization and e-commerce enablement, all of which are summarized here. I’ve included a few sites to help you get started.

Creating the look and feel of your website.
If you feel comfortable with technology or want to begin with a simple site, there are plenty of software programs to help you do it yourself, including Adobe Dreamweaver. For a list with reviews, visit Consumer Search and look under “software reviews.” Building your own site can be time-consuming, but the programs will walk you through the process and are appropriate for beginners to more advanced users.

Remember, a poorly designed website is worse than no website at all because it can turn interested customers away. Your information should be concise, meaningful, and informative; your photos and graphics should be clear and professional; and your colors and design should be reader-friendly and attractive. In addition, the pages should be easy to navigate. If you’re offering e-commerce, provide customers with an easy, efficient process to purchase your products, so they don’t get frustrated and go away.

Providing a web address for your site.
You can register your own domain name whether or not you hire a professional design firm. In fact, you can do it right now. Registration is relatively inexpensive and allows you to claim an address for yourself before someone else registers it. Many web hosting providers offer this service as part of their package. To find out whether your desired address is available or to register a domain name, try sites such as MyDomain, 1and1, and GoDaddy.

Giving people access to your website.
You’ll need to find a host for your website so anyone browsing the net can find it. Hosting services start at about four dollars per month and climb from there, depending on traffic volume (number of visitors and amount of bandwidth) and the services you add. To find a provider, check out WHReviews.com, BestWebHosting2008.com and Hosting-Review.com.

You’ll find that many companies offer all or most of the tools and functions you need as bundles or as a-la-carte, add-on features. These can include hosting, design, drag-and-drop templates, domain name registration, e-commerce, and e-mail.