Setting Up a Website For Your Business

So you're ready to go into online marketing or set up a website for your home-based business. You must ask yourself if you are ready to take on the daunting task of setting up your own website. If you're not already familiar with website design, graphics design and writing sales copy you may be overwhelmed with what it takes to set up a website.

A Few Things You Need Too know:

Domain Name

You need to find a domain name something interesting there will remind people of you, your website and your product or service. Don't forget when you choosing your domain name your branding yourself so be sure to be creative.

Web Hosting

There are many different types of web hosting companies and web hosting plans across the Internet take time out and evaluate the ones that you think will be a good fit for your business model.



Hyper Text Markup Language or HTML

This is a language used to format web pages. HTML is not a programming language, it's a markup language used to describe with markup tags used to describe content on web pages. Don't let this scare you, then many of HTML WYSIWYG - what you see is what you get - programs out there to choose from. So you don't have to be an HTML professional to get this part of the job done

Web Page Design

You need to know how to properly layout and format web pages for your new site. Web design is very similar to print design in that it uses the same elements. You need to look at space and layout, handle fonts and colors and combine it all in a neat package that conveys your message.

Writing Copy

This is a part of website design that is very difficult for many. Writing copy involves skill, creativity, imagination and sometimes hard work. For some people writing comes easily and for others it can stop them in their tracks. Sometimes writers block can be overcome with practice and study, however I would suggest taking a look at websites which are similar to the one you intend to develop.

When you think of all the work that really has to go into the development of a website, you might consider outsourcing a good choice, of course outsourcing will cost money. However, if you can afford it, outsourcing will save you a lot of time and grief because even after your site is done you still have to optimize it and that's a whole other story.

Always consider the immense knowledge that truly goes into building a good website. And if you're going to be on the web anyways you should always look as good as your competition if not better.