1. Choose a keyword-rich domain name that includes at least one good keyword about your website theme.

NOTE: We offer an affordable service to you with suggestions to get a good domain name.

2. Define the purpose of the website. This is crucial. You need to know if the website will be to drive leads to build a customer list, whether you want people to fill out a form to give you information on their situation if you are offering real estate information, for example, or if you are just looking to get information about you and your firm out to the public.

- - Do you want to use your website more as a savings of time to send out reports to people that request information?
- - Do you want to portray an image of a modern fast paced type of company or do you want to portray an image of a down home charming retail store?
- - Do you want to direct them to a phone line for more information or an autoresponder or maybe sign up for an ezine?

3. Give some thought to colors. The right colors that move your visitors to certain actions.

For instance, certain shades of green portray a soothing feeling while red jumps out at you and makes you want to take action. Use bold colors sparingly.

4. Another good thing to think about is the navigation links or buttons and what they will say. In other words, how many do you really need to get your website point across and what type of links would you need created to accomplish that point?

HINT: Changing text is easier than changing buttons for a webmaster, so try to have some idea what you want. Do not start out thinking you will have a 5-8 page website and then add six more buttons. This can lead to six more pages and unless you use DIY Website Building Software you can expect a price increase on the website design.

5. If you have any graphics you want to use, gather them up and have them available from the very beginning for the webmaster. He or she will also have graphics that they will add to make the website more interesting.

HINT: It’s a good idea to keep large graphics to a minimum. The webmaster can resize them but note that clarity and sharpness may be reduced. Most good webmasters can help tremendously in this realm of making the images fit your pages if the pictures you provide are clear and crisp.

6. If you have the music clips or audio clips that you want to use, be prepared to provide them for the webmaster. He or she will require music clips in mp3 format most likely.

7. Provide the webmaster with all your contact information and any comments you want to use for the “About Us” page. That would be items relative to your business and awards you may have won, goals of your company, little bits of personal information about the partners or owners, how long the business has been viable or how long you have been in this sort of business, how long online, things like that help a visitor to know you better and feel more comfortable doing business with you.

8. Templates. An original template can cost a bit more but is well worth the investment as it makes the look and feel of your site 100% original.

9. Consider your webmaster an extension of your business. It will be up to you to market your business, but having a good website should be a collaboration of effort between you and the webmaster. Your website can come alive with sound, graphics, and colors. The clearer you can be on what you desire, the more the webmaster has to work with and will be able to satisfy you more thoroughly.

Most people are amazed at what a good team of webmasters can do with just simple outlines of ideas!

Most webmasters want to make their customers happy and will spend the time to work with you to make sure your website is pleasing. Give them the courtesy of being reasonable in your desires and needs and the website creation experience will be a positive situation for everyone.

An Alternative to Hiring a Webmaster - Website Building Software

If you don’t have the money or the time to hire a webmaster to build your site, there is a simple alternative - it is the same software that we used to create this and many other sites and is a very affordable website building software package.

It is called XSitePro and is fast becoming THE site building tool of choice for many designers in the Internet Marketing community.