How to Build Your First Website

Ensuring that browsers can find your site through search engines.
Once your site is designed and online, the key is getting customers to find it. Simply launching it on the web doesn’t mean they’ll see it; you need to ensure that it comes up when people search for key terms associated with your product, service or company. This is often referred to as search engine optimization or SEO. To do this, you’ll need to submit your website to popular search engines such as Google. For a comprehensive list, visit SearchEngineWatch.com. You should also ensure that your website’s copy includes plenty of key terms in your headlines and subheads directly related to your business.

Enabling e-commerce.
You’ll need additional information if you want to enable e-commerce on your site. If you need a website solely to sell online, the easiest and probably fastest approach is to create a store account with an online auction site such as eBay, Google, Yahoo! or MSN.

However, assuming you want your own e-commerce store and platform, you’ll need to establish a merchant account. This will allow you to receive payments via credit card by processing payments with your bank. In addition to your own bank or financial institution, many companies offer merchant account services. For a list and reviews, visit MerchantAccountForum. Fees can vary greatly, so shop around before deciding on a provider.

Once you have set up your merchant account, you’ll also need a “gateway” service that allows consumers to enter their personal information and credit card information online, such as Authorize, VeriSign, and IntelliPay. These companies function as a bridge between your business and the credit card and electronic check-payment processing networks, to provide secure passage of payment data to the appropriate credit card processors.

QuickBooks’ Merchant Services provides similar services, with the advantage of enabling automatic entry of credit card payments into your QuickBooks Financial software program, eliminating double entry of financial data.

Add a shopping cart.
The last step in the e-commerce process is to add a shopping cart to your website. This is the button your customers click on to tally the items they plan to purchase and proceed to checkout, where they provide their credit card information. Click here to read reviews of the various kinds of shopping cart software.

If you’re overwhelmed, you’ll be happy to know that many of the services mentioned in this article are provided by all-in-one service companies—often for one monthly package price—through one source such as Web or CityMax.

However, it can also be well worth your time to outsource the task, especially if you anticipate heavy e-commerce or a more complex, customized website design from the start. In that case, plan to work closely with the design firm to ensure that your overall goals are accomplished on time and within budget, and that it truly understands your vision and intentions for the site. A plethora of web designers and design firms can be found by searching Google, Craigslist, or even your local chamber of commerce or phone book.