Web Design

Anyone can design a website. Many of us can design a site that is a beautiful work of art or a technical marvel. It is a rare thing to find someone that can design a website that can attract thousands of potential customers every month and turn them into buying customers. Making a site easy to find is much harder than making it look good.

Ideally, a website can be an excellent tool for generating fresh new sales leads, but only once it has become visible on the search engines. This is not something that can be done in a day, a week or a month, even a year. The secret is knowing what you're buying when you get a quote from a web designer. A website is an excellent idea if you want to generate more sales leads than what you are already getting using distributors, salesman, newspapers, and other traditional advertising methods. But the design of that website is only a minor part of the long term process of reaching new customers, generating brand awareness, new sales leads and revenue. It is not something that you should do on a whim. A $500 website may look like a great deal, but it is probably nothing more than an empty building that no one will ever visit.

Getting Started
Here are four crucial steps that you must take to get off on the right foot.

1. Domain Name Registration
With Google putting new websites in a holding pattern for as long as 2 years, it is highly recommended that you pick a domain name and get it hosted as fast as you can. It will take a year or more for Google to index the site and for it to show up for any keywords.

The first thing you have to do is pick a domain name or a URL address for your website. Most people usually try to get something like their company name, i.e., www.companyname.com. While this is usually a good strategy, it can also be a good idea to do some research first and think about other alternatives that might be even better. It is usually a good marketing idea to pick a domain name that tells people what you are selling, i.e., heatexchangers.com. Whatever you decide on, make sure you register the domain name with a trusted registrar and, if you can afford it, that you register the URL for more than one year. Renewing a domain name ever year can be a traumatic experience if you are not use to it. A good place to start searching for a domain name is BlueHost. They're relatively cheap, their fast and quick to respond to any inquires you might have.

3. Web Hosting
The next step is to get your domain name hosted. This is a crucial step and shouldn't be taken in haste. You want a host that is reasonably priced, easy to contact, quick to respond to your questions, reliable and technically capable of dealing with all kinds of websites. It goes without saying that a good hosting company is very rare. Most hosting companies can handle your standard website. Not all, however, can handle an e-commerce website or a website with an administration backend that allows you to update the website yourself. (If you want a website with a cart, make sure the host supports MySQL and .php on a Unix server.) Also make sure that their web statistics software is sophisticated enough to give you detailed information about the visitors that visit your website. - Visit Web Hosting Buying Guide by CNET.com for advice on choosing the right web hosting for you.

	Blue Host - Our professional Web Hosting plans include all the features you are looking for at the best possible price.
	Apollo Hosting - Fast, Reliable Hosting, 400 MB $6.96/mo., Free Ecommerce Software, and more!

3. Web Design
Once you have your domain name hosted, you are ready to design your website. Once you get a quote, try to remember that you are not getting a fully developed website that will sell your products online. Nothing could be farther from the truth. When you see web designers offering to design a website for $500, all you are really getting is an empty container - even less if it is not a search engine friendly design. Ideally, it is the function of a website to sell your products, but only once it has been fully developed. Which is another way of saying, not until it is easy to find on the search engines.

I offer three different website designs:

1. Standard: your typical website with product pages and a form that users can fill out and submit.
2. Content Management: a website that allows you to add your own pages, images and content.
3. Shopping Cart: an e-commerce or shopping cart website.

Unless you already know for sure that your website is going to be a total success I would recommend the standard "run of the mill" website. There are several reasons for following this strategy. A standard website is cheaper, not as hard to build, easier to work with, and easier to promote on the search engines. Once you know that the website is going to work, i.e., brings you lots of visitors and generates new sales, you can always change your existing website into a website with a cart or with an administrative "backend". The same is true when it comes to the appearance or "look" of a website. Before you spend a lot of time and money on a professionally designed website, make sure that it is going to pay for itself. For suggestions on how to have a successful website visit my brief article on Strategies for Selling Manufactured Products Online.

4. Web Promotion
The last big step is to promote your website and make it easy to find. This is the most important part of the whole process and can take years before you will see any genuine results. If you can't wait that long, think about Google Adwords as quick and easy (but expensive) way to get some visitors to your site and possibly some sales. This might give your site the boost it needs, while you work on developing the content of you site and getting quality links to boost its pagerank. Click here for more information on promoting your website.