• Choose and register a domain name


• Write a site outline


• Get a website template

• Write your website content


• Make your website user friendly


• Put together an e-commerce system

• Choose a web host


• Set up your website


• Market your website

• Home


• About Us


• Contact

• Does the design convey a professional image that fits with your business?


• Do the pages download within a reasonable time?


• Does the design look good in all of the most common screen resolutions and browsers?


• Does the template come with a site builder that formats your content for you?

• Organize your content with headings and subheadings.


• Tell readers what each page is about near the top of each page.


• Write clear, concise sentences in short paragraphs or bullet format.


• Use tables to display data such as product and price comparisons.


• Provide details about your products and services. Imagine what you’d want to know if you were looking for the products or services that you provide, and make this information easily accessible at your website.

• A readable font size


• Clear contrast between the font color and the background


• Links to the main pages that are easy to find from any page





• Links throughout the site that take visitors to the next steps — more details about your products or services, order pages, contact information

• An online shopping cart program so that people can place orders


• A merchant account to handle Internet payment transactions


• A payment gateway to connect your shopping cart and the financial institutions involved in the sale


• An SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate to establish a secure connection when receiving credit card information

• Are the support people fast and helpful?


• Can you reach support easily at any time?


• Does the company have a good record of server uptime?


• Do the hosting packages provide room for your site to grow?

• Hundreds of templates to choose from using Site Studio — no HTML knowledge required


• A shopping cart and shared SSL certificate included with accounts


• Free website content that clients can publish at their sites


• A marketing control panel with tools to help market and monitor websites

• Your domain name When you set up your web hosting account, your web host gave you the names of two nameservers. These names need to be in the domain name record for your domain name to point to your website.

• Your website content Your web designer can format the content in HTML for you and add it to each web page. If you’re using a pre-made template with a website builder, you can add the content yourself.

• Your website You can upload your web pages via an FTP (file transfer protocol) program or via the website control panel if your control panel has a file upload feature. If your site has an e-commerce system, you can set it up after you upload your page files.

• Do all the links work?


• Can visitors find information easily with the minimal number of clicks?


• If you have a shopping cart, does it work smoothly?


• Did you provide all the details that visitors need, including contact information?

• Submit your site to search engines.


• Find relevant online directories and submit your site to them.


• Ask the webmasters of sites with related content if they want to link to your site.


• Put your site name and a link to it in your signature line for all outgoing email.


• Participate in forums and newsgroups and include your site name and a link to it in your signature line for posts.

• Print it on your business cards and stationery.


• Display it in your store or office.


• Add it in lettering on your company vehicle.


• Put it on any company giveaway items.


• Include it with any advertisements.

About the Author

About the author: Chris K. is a Technical Executive Writer for Website Source, Inc.. His established writing skills coupled with experience in the web hosting industry have provided internet professionals with marketing, product and service ideas for many years. Chris continues to do extensive research in the e-commerce industry.