part1
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If you plan to start or already have a home based business
then a website is something you should give serious thought
to.
It's an inexpensive way to market your products and
services.
If you sell products you can have an online catalogue which
you can update, available 24 hours a day 7 days a week. You
could set up an e-shop quite easily and accept orders from
customers anywhere in the world.
Building a website yourself may seem daunting if you have
had little experience of the internet and don't know how to
use HTML, but don't despair!!
At one time website building was only for those who where
technically minded and had a lot of knowledge about
computers, but with some of the easy to use webdesign
software available you can do it.
For a very easy to use and inexpensive at ú15 piece of
webdesign software, download webcreator. It's great for
first time webdesigners.
http://www.mindscape.co.uk/products/TopProducts.asp?sst=2&c
id=2&ssid=41
Frontpage is fairly inexpensive and not to difficult to
learn how to use. I built my first site using Frontpage.
Get a free trial download.
http://www.runaware.com/microsoft/frontpage2003/
Dreamweaver is more expensive but they do have a 30 day
trial download. You get easy to follow tutorials and and
extensive manual with it.
http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=dr
eamweaver
It may be useful to learn some basic HTML as it will enable
you to fine tune pages and add your own coding.
For a free online course go to
http://www.e-learningcenter.com/free_html_course.htm
Over several articles I will try and help you to put
together a site that will be profitable and bring in
targeted traffic.
Before you even begin to design your site you must ask
yourself the following questions.
1 What is the purpose of your website? Is it to sell
products, promote a service, provide information or build a
downline in an MLM business.
2 Who are your target audience? They may be students, single
parents wanting an extra income, or anyone interested in
your services or products that you are selling.
3 What is your content going to be, and how are you going to
present it?
Good content is vital. Make each page theme focused and
write as if you were talking to a friend. Think what it is
that you are trying to achieve and work towards a most
wanted response at the end of the page.
What do you want your visitor to do?
Do you want them to fill a form in at the end of the page to
request more information? Or do you want them to go to your
online store and purchase some products?
4 Get yourself a domain name. It looks much more
professional to have your own domain name rather than use
the free space that comes with your service provider.
It doesn't cost much to buy a domain name and it will give
you an enormous advantage. Next you will need to find a web
hosting company. There are so many to choose from. Just look
around and compare prices and services before you make a
decision.
When you have made these important decisions then the next
step is to plan the site.
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Planning your site
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Plan your website on paper first. First plan your pages.
Start with the index or home page and draw a diagram showing
how the pages will link from the index page. Produce a
simple flow chart to show how users can navigate through the
site.
On another piece of paper draw out where you want the page
elements to go. This includes the navigation bar, header,
logo, main text area, and any other navigation such as a sub
menu.
Good planning will make it a lot easier when you come to
construct the site on the computer.
Do some research and take a look at other sites who have a
similar theme to yours. Study their design and note if the
navigation works well or not. Does it take long to download?
You can often learn a lot from other webdesigners.
In part 2 I will discuss designing the page elements of your
website.
Kathy has her own mlm online business which you can visit at
http://www.healthandbeautytowealth.co.uk
She has written several other articles on online marketing
http://www.healthandbeautytowealth.co.uk/articles/articles.
which you can find at html