How to Create a Business Website

It doesn't take a degree in Computer Science to build a website. You don't even have to know HTML. There are many sites, including Go Daddy, that make it so simple that all you have to do is fill in blanks.

I don't recommend these, easy templates, however, as they certainly limit your creativity and choices. Microsoft Front Office is my favorite, and the tool I have used to create many websites. With Microsoft FrontPage, you can choose themes or background colors, fonts, and headings to create endless styles to match your tastes. You can easily copy and paste pictures or clipart. And it's extremely easy to learn how to use. There are many good tutorials online, or you can just play with it til you learn it, like I did.

Once you've studied or played around with FrontPage a bit and learned how to use it, there are some things that
you need to consider to make your website work.

1. Find a good site to host your website. I recommend GoDaddy, because it is utterly reliable and very inexpensive. On the GoDaddy site, research the name you want for your business website, make sure it's available, and register it. Then sign up for webhosting and make sure to click that you want FrontPage Extensions.

Now you're ready to design your site:

2. Make sure your background is not too dark or too busy for your font. Make sure your text and pictures actually show up clearly! Many times I see beautiful designs on websites that completely obscure the information. Also, a very fancy font may be difficult for some people to read.

3. Make sure you put your contact information on every single page. The easier it is for people to contact you, the more likely they are to order from you. The more often they see your name, the more often they are to remember it.. This is the one easy thing to do that I find most companies do not do!

4. If you are selling something, make it easy for people to pay you. You don't have to take credit cards or checks. All you need is a Paypal account. Even such major companies as Progressive Insurance and Barnes and Noble bookstores now accept Paypal payments, as well as Ebay. It's very easy to sign up for a Paypal account. You can have a personal account or a business account, and if you like, you can have payments sent from Paypal to your bank account.

5. Watch the fancy animation! Sure, it looks cool, but Flash animation and drop down menus can make your site load slowly on some computers and make navigation more difficult. The faster your site loads and the easier it is to navigate, the better. A little animations goes a long way.

6. Speaking of navigation, don't forget to put links to your home page on every page, and from your home page to every page.

7. If you're selling something, use lots of pictures of your product. Pictures sell better than words. Make sure the prices are easy to find, and don't forget to specify shipping and handling charges.

8. Study about Search Engine Optimization, and make sure you use keywords effectively. Be sure to submit your site to the search engines, especially Google and Yahoo. The best website in the world will do nothing if it doesn't get seen.

9. Once your hosting account is active, and your design is complete, all you have to do is hit "save as," choose what you want to save your page as, and you're online! When you want to update or make changes, just return to FrontPage, open your page, make your changes, and click "save." You won't need to click "Save as" unless you are creating a new page.

And that's how to create a page for your business in FrontPage. If you don't mind having less design choices and want something easier, an alternative way to create your site is with Microsoft Office Live Basic. It is completely free and very easy, and a good way to get started quickly. Of the very easy methods, this one seems to me to be the most versatile.

So don't be intimidated by the Internet or web design. Go ahead and play with making your own website. You may find yourself addicting. Website building is fun!