The first step in getting your web site design project going is to decided on a domain name and purchase it. There are hundreds of companies like GoDaddy.com and Dotster.com that offer very reasonable rates.

There are a couple of things to think about when deciding on a domain name. You can get a domain that reflects your organization e.g.: AceToolWorks.com, BrooksTileStore.com, DunnSandandGravel.com, BotiqueMary.com or CommunityKitchen.org

You might also consider a domain name that reflects your line of business or the service your offer e.g.: LawOffices.com, IcecreamStore.com, ReadingTutor.org, CarRepair.com, ShoesFixed.com or Da DayCare.org

Of course with millions of small business and nonprofit's looking to be on the web finding just the right name may take a couple of hours. TIP you can use a dash - between words in a domain and the search engines will read it as a space. This may be a good idea if you want to optimize your site for the search engines.

Using the dash in the domain name on a site that you want people to find out about through word of mouth may be problematic. People may tend to forget the dash when passing on the domain through word of mouth. But if you want people to find it primarily through search engines and links then there will be little or no problem.

EXTRA INFO: If you want to fill up on a ton of Domain Name information head on over to Wikipedia

Once you have decided on a Domain Name for your web site you will want to choose a host for that site. Now you could wait until you hire a web site designer for their opinion and that is ok. I would however recommend you visit 3 or 4 hosts and look at what they offer. Hosts like bluehost or Lunar pages all offer very good packages at competitive rates and have very good customer service.

I recommend you avoid small start ups and you are not sure of the ins and outs of moving and rebuilding a site if you were to have problems with your host or their customer service. Taking the road of going with a well established hosting company as you learn your way is really the way to go. Of course once you are sure of what is going on there are many hundreds of hosting companies to choose from and if you want to change hosts it can in many cases be done in a few hours.

The benefit of going ahead and getting a host before you even approach a designer is that you will get to know how things are setup and there won't be any surprise hosting charges showing in the designers bill. Another advantage is you will have all the information for logging in and creating your site. I can't stress this enough, you need to possess all hosting information in case something should happen to your designer or coder. Not having the information is like not having the title to your car when it is time to sell it, no one will talk with you. TIP whether you let your designer setup your hosting account or you do it (secure your information).

Most small businesses and nonprofit's can set up a wonderful web site for under 10.00 US a month and if you pay for a year many hosts will give you a discount. Unless you have a huge company or an online store you don't need to spend more. TIP if the traffic to your web site is less then 400 people a day stick with a hosting account costing less then 10.00 US a month.

At today's (2007) prices you want a host that offers 100GB (gigabytes) of space or more, 1000GB (gigabytes) of data transfer a month or more. The package should also include PHP and 5 MYSQL database connections or more. Most web design people deal with hosts that have the servers running Apache with PHP and MYSQL and this allows you to have a robust site built on a CMS (Content Management System) like Joomla or Drupal. A robust CMS allows you to make changes and updates to you

Who Knew? The web came along and millions of people put up web sites to promote their businesses and organizations, who knew so many people where so thirsty for your expertise.

Now people interested in your type of business will devour all the information on your web site, that is if you have presented it well and made it interesting.

Your expertise comes in many sizes and shapes but it's all valuable to many people doing business on the web. You may have an MBA from an Ivy League school or you may be the worlds best darn artist of popcorn containers. The vast hunger for both specialized and generalized knowledge and skills in unquenchable.

If you create your own products then writing about how you got to where you are would be a great place to start. You can add a gallery featuring photos, video and audio that showcase how and why you do things within your organization.

Write about how things have changed in the years you have been in business and what you see coming down the road in the future. You could write a number of articles about how employees have changed, how the internet has changed your business or even how working from home has given you more time. The sky is the limit in expressing yourself in relation to your business and how you understand that business.

Let's not forget your expert advice in how your product is used and novel ways to use those products. If you make decorative bath and kitchen tiles write about how one of your customers used the tiles to add a border around the window in their store or that another customer used the tiles to add flare to a new series of snowboards.

Maybe you make specialized shock absorbers and you had a customer who uses them for table legs in a series of tables made for large yachts.The sky is the limit in tapping into your years of being in business. Your marketing professional should be telling you all this and working closely with all you do, if not, maybe you need a new marketing person.

Sure you can build your own web site, you can also fix your own car, grow all your own vegetables and build that 3 floor lake bungalow you have been talking about. But and here is the real question. Do You want to spend the time learning new skills that you may only use once when that time may be best spent growing your business? Focus on the business and let peripheral issues involved in building a web site in the hands of a qualified web designer.

Skills you would need to learn

* Graphic Optimization
* Working With Colors
* HTML
* Basic PHP and MYSQL
* A Helping of Java Script
* Browser Compatibility Testing
* Search Engine Optimization
* Search Engine Marketing

I'm sure many people can pickup the skills in few days to make a passing web site and I don't mean to scare anyone off with view that it is better to focus on your business and let a designer do your site. There are just so many issues to address in building and marketing your web site that I recommend you think about it deeply before jumping in and doing it yourself.

This page is sponsored by The Open Site web design located in Manchester, NH. And please check out our page on Hot Dogs for lots of fun info.