Professional Web Design vs. Non-Professional Web Design
Unfortunately, many small business owners that decide to build their company's website themselves, using the latest packaged "do-it-yourself" software, learn that it's not nearly as easy as they thought or might have heard. In the long run, it will usually end up costing them almost double their originally estimated budget, but more importantly, they'll lose an enormous amount of valuable hours in the process.

A professional design company should be able to help alleviate these problems.

Any good design company/designer should be able to analyze your business objectives and goals, develop a strategy to meet those needs, make suggestions based on industry standards, be current with technology and web trends, incorporate your company's existing marketing efforts, and ensure that your website not only looks good, is easy to find and easy to navigate, but loads quickly and is accessible across a wide range of platforms.

Creating a successful website is time consuming and detail-oriented work. A very good, customized, well thought-out website should take a minimum of 40 hours worth of work. There should be time dedicated for design options, programming options and alternatives based on your needs, website marketing discussions, and a maintenance plan about the upkeep of the website. Don't be afraid to ask a design company about their process of web development. There are a lot of companies that will take your money and run. Do some research, ask questions, and don't base everything on price alone.

There are a lot more "behind-the-scenes" things that non-industry personnel are unaware of. Your company might not be up to date with current internet trends or in a position to support such an effort. Buy choosing a professional design partner, you can focus on what's most important to you - your core business.

Don't put your company's image at risk. First impressions do mean everything on the web. Don't waste your time or money, have your website professionally designed.

Choose the right "domain" name for your website
The first rule of thumb when registering a domain name(a.k.a. Web Address or URL) is to keep it short and simple. Avoid using unique spellings or hyphens if possible. You must always remember that internet users need to be able to easily remember your domain name and type it into their browser. We recommend 10 characters at maximum. 5-8 characters would be ideal. As you can see, it's easy to remember and type "www.mycompany.com", rather than "www.myveryverylongcompanyname.com", "www.my-company.com", or "www.mycompanee.com".

You must remember that your domain name will also need to be added on all of your printed marketing materials, such as letterhead, business cards, mailers, etc. Long domain names can prove to be troublesome. For instance, the email, "myname@mycompany.com" is much easier to read and display rather than, "myname@myverylongdomainnamehere.com".

Also, if you are a business, we recommend purchasing the ".com" extension first. It is the most common extension people will try when searching the web. You may also want to register some other extensions to avoid others from registering them. For example, "www.mycomany.biz" or "www.mycompany.mobi".

Avoid trademarked names. In the mid 90s, it was common for anyone to register a company's name and basically "kidnap" it. Those that did this would hope that the company would offer a large amount of money to buy the domain from them. Since then, the Internet laws have changed drastically. Although, some people still like to "test-the-waters", it is recommended that unless you have the money and time for long legal battles against corporate giants, find a different domain name.

Get the most from your web hosting company
Getting a good price for your web hosting is just a small component on selecting a web hosting company. Please do not base your decision solely on price. There are some other important factors that you should really look for as well.

Not only should the web host be reliable and fast, it should guarantee its uptime (the time when it is functional). Look for a minimum uptime of 99%.

Find a host that offers technical support 24 hours, 7days a week. You should always feel confident, that no matter what time or day, if something goes wrong with the website, you can call and get someone right away.

Although most websites will never need it, if you are hosting a business website, make sure your web hosting company will provide you with at least 10GB of monthly data transfer and 500MB of space. This will allow you flexibility to expand in the future. It will also allow you more storage space if you want to add videos or audio to your website.

lf you are paying for hosting, you should make sure you also have FTP, PHP, Perl CGI-BIN access, SSI, .htaccess, telnet, and SSH.

For those opening an online store, you should find out what type of shopping cart software is provided by the hosting company. Some companies offer a basic shopping cart for free, with higher priced packages available. Others may offer a selection of options at additional costs. If you plan to collect credit card information on your website, you will definitely need SSL.

Make sure your host provides email accounts with your hosting package. You will want to have an email address at your own domain, for example, myname@mydomainname.com. You should look for a host that will provide at least 20 pop accounts for your business. This will allow you to provide all your employees with their very own email addresses as well.

Look for an easy to use control panel. Most hosting companies will provide you with a control panel that will allow you to make updates to your account, your email addresses, etc. This is a very nice feature for someone that is a bit technical savvy.

Attract and keep internet users at your website
A common misconception is that once you create a website, millions of visitors will automatically be drawn to your website. Unfortunately, that's not the reality of it.

For a website to be successful, you must develop a marketing strategy based on your budget and resources, especially if you are a small-sized company competing against giant-sized corporations with multi-million dollar ad campaigns. Begin by submitting your website to all the major search engines and directories such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Next, write a press release to announce the launching of your website. Be sure to send it to as many media outlets as possible. Remember, a website enters you into the global marketplace, don't limit yourself. Promote your website on all of your company's business cards, promotional flyers, newspapers ads, tv ads, newsletters, and any other form of traditional advertising. You may also want to join user groups, online forums and other online services to help promote your website.

Once you get the traffic to your website, you must now keep them there. Make sure your content is always fresh and up to date. Visitors will come back often if they know they can always count on finding current news, product information, market trends, etc.

What features do you like that make you go back to certain websites? Incorporate the things you enjoy, I'm sure there are many others just like you.

Online visitors should be treated the same as those that walk through your door
A very big mistake that many business owners make, is not treating their online visitors with the same courtesy as those that go to their office or walk into their store.

Once you create a website, you are stating to the world that you are committed to doing business on the internet. Those of us using the internet daily, will hold you to that.

If a product is currently unavailable or out of stock, make sure that it is stated on your website. There is nothing more aggravating then ordering an item, entering all your personal information, only to find that an item has been backordered or discontinued.

Whenever anyone takes the time to email your company and ask a question about a particular product or the services you provide, reply quickly. If you can not respond immediately, leave a confirmation message stating that you have received their inquiry and that you will reply to them as soon as possible. Once an online visitor feels that he/she does not receive a fair response within a proper timeframe, you will lose that customer forever. If you sent an email inquirying about a product's details and receive an email response 3 days later, there's a very good chance that you would have moved on and purchased the item from someone who responded to you immediately.

Do your part. Check your email daily and respect online visitors!