Contents

1. Getting Started: Choosing Your Domain Name

Your domain name is your unique address where people will find you on the internet. Keep it simple, short and relevant to your business. You can use your business name or its initials ie. planthire.com.au, your industry ie. realestate.com.au or a benefit that your product or service offers ie. savetime.com.au. If you plan to do business overseas then you ideally need to register your domain name as a .com.au (Australia), .com (USA) etc.

2. Professional Look: Hosting, Emails etc.

For your website to be found on the net it will need to be hosted by an Internet Service Provider (ISP). Once loaded to the ISP's server the site will be visible when a person types in your unqiue web address (domain name). You should also set your email accounts up with your domain name ie. info@xyzcompany.com.au and add an email signature to all your outgoing emails.

3. Good Planning: Designing Your Website

Firstly consider what your website will do - is it there to promote your business, deliver information on your products or sell your products online etc.? Your website needs to provide something to your customers and help your business. Next, prepare a flow chart of where the Home page will take you and what other pages will be contained on the site - this is like a site map and will help your web developers to prepare an accurate quote for the build.

Build your website for tomorrow and not today - your business together with your website will grow and you need to accommodate this development from the start.

Dynamic websites allow for you to add sections and pages to your site as you need to so these are often the best option for a growing business.

4. Consider Site Enhancements

Subtle animation can make a site look professional, more interesting and make the visitor feel that it is 'live' on the net. Site animations can be done in Flash (users will need Flash Player on their computer to view the animation), Gif (these are simple transitions but can be quite large in file size which will slow down the display time of your page) and Java (which requires no player and is more web friendly). 

5. Open 24 Hours: Selling Your Products Online

Unlike your traditional business, the internet is open 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. Consider the option of selling your products online through a secure payment gateway attached to your site.

Firstly you will need to choose an online payment partner like PayPal or VeriSign. Next you will need a Privacy Policy, Terms and Conditions of Sale and a Return Policy. Then take photos of all your products and setup your e-commerce backend including shopping cart and checkout.