With the ever-expanding popularity of the Internet comes e-commerce, the exploding trend of doing business on-line. Perhaps you have witnessed first- hand the infinite power of communication, information, and marketing afforded by this awesome tool.

But how do you get from the basic concept of your own web site- to a professionally designed site, up and running on your own domain? The following information may helpful.

Planning Your Web Site

Some questions you need to answer before developing your own custom web site design are:

Will it be a personal web site? Personal web sites usually focus on family and friends, or things such as hobbies, recent news, or “fun� things.

Will it be for conducting or promoting business? On the internet you will find an endless variety of business web sites, ranging from basic customer information type sites, to enormous ecommerce web sites like ebay or amazon.

These mega web sites require extensive inter-relational databases to enable the various aspects of the site such as on-line credit card purchasing or customer service forums to function properly, and track and record each transaction.

In addition to personal or business web design, there are educational sites, political or viewpoint sites, support or encouragement sites for any given subject, blog-type sites, and the list goes on.

Once you have decided what type of web site you want, it is necessary to develop a domain name. You should give much thought to this; the domain name should relate in some way to the subject of your web site. For instance, if you are selling baseball cards, a good name would be baseball.com, or ballcards.com. After deciding on a name, check with one of the online registries to find out if the name is available, or whether it has already been taken.

Solving Technical Obstacles

Once you have successfully selected and registered a domain name, you are ready to begin your own custom web site design.

Because many aspects of publishing a web page design can be very complicated and technical, you will most likely want to enlist the services of a web site design company. Especially if your site does on-line transactions. When credit card transactions are involved, your site needs to be secure in order to protect you and your customers.

A good web design will include aesthetic points, such as appearance and page loading times. If a page loads too slowly, potential customers may grow impatient and leave.

When it comes to a business web site, the more people you can get to visit the higher the chances for making a sale. How do you get the people visit your web site? By being high visible on the various search engines. This is accomplished through careful meta tag and keyword placement.

Once you get people to visit your site, keep them there with a user-friendly web site format; eye appealing, easy to maneuver, and professional looking, with interesting, up to date content.

Even with complex technical issues to deal with, there are many affordable design companies available to help you create just the right web site. For more information or a quote for services, visit www.acecomp.com

Max Sheppard is Co-Owner of Acecomp Plus at http://www.acecomp.com. Customer Website Design, Website Development, E-Commerce and Content Management Solutions to maximize our client’s online potential.