Contact Information Who are you and where are you located? Proving you’re not a fly-by-net operation is easier if you have provided a name, street address, phone number, toll-free is a huge bonus, and fax number. Also, make absolutely certain that your e-mail address is easy to locate.

Testimonials Sell Products Use real testimonials, with real names of people living in actual cities and towns across world. People who have tried your product/service and have been impressed enough to jot down a line or two…these missives should be displayed on your main page in order to create an element of trust. You can also have a testimonials page. Always ask person if it’s okay to use their testimonial.

Speed Sells Your site must be able to load quickly – check out home page for Google and see how fast that loads. Please keep in mind that not everyone with an Internet connection is able to get online via cable modem or DSL. Some people still have dial-up, and are also charged by minute so for them a quickly loading web page is important.

Hosting It Since you already have a reliable ISP such as AOL, MSN, Earthlink, Adelphia, Yahoo, etc., your next step is to find a place where you can put your web site out there. The above-mentioned ISP’s provide web hosting for various prices, but you are advised to always compare hosts. Make sure you read reviews and check out: http://www.webhostingratings.com Here are six things you should look for when considering a hosting company.

1.Monthly cost – If you’re shopping around for a free web site, be aware of number of limitations and restrictions you’ll encounter. Oftentimes free means fee, but that’s hidden in fine print [if at all] on hosting company’s site. As in everything, you get what you pay for. 2.Setup Fee – Sometimes a hosting company will charge a small one-time fee, other times they will have a rather large fee. The more services you require such as: lots of e-mail addresses, shopping cart, streaming audio/video, extra disk space, etc., higher amount. 3.Disk Space – How many MB [millions of bytes] will you need? You can get as few as 5 MB and as many as 1000 for less than $20 per month. 4.Transfer Rate – GB [billions of bytes] of pictures, text, etc. you will be allowed to upload onto your site per month. It also applies to what a visitor on your site will be viewing and if you have an exceptionally high rate of traffic you will have to pay for it. 5.Technical support availability – Whether by e-mail, online chat or toll-free number, this is a service that many consider vital, especially if they have no experience with web sites. 6.Good uptime – If your host is on downtime that means your site will be unavailable to anyone. Look for a host with no less than 99% uptime

In Creating Your First Web Site, Part 2, you will learn about getting your site online and into search engines and directories, along with ways to promote it and exchange links.

When building your website I recommend that you use a top header with a horizontal menu underneath - preferably not made from images as user may have selected not to view images. If you must use images for navigation remember to add alt tags. If your content area uses columns be sure that main contents are on left. The “fit to screen” function will move text to left hand side saving visitor from having to scroll. The footer should contain a link to top of page in form of an anchor tag. A link to your sitemap is important as it allows visitors to reach information they want quickly.

Optimize your images as usual in GIF/JPEG formats. Testing your website is vital before you fully launch to public, try viewing your site with a number of different devices. If browser is able, use "fit to screen" and view page without images. It doesn't have to be perfect just as long as you can easily navigate all your pages and view content without scrolling.