Pay for a web designer or do it yourself? Can small business owners really design a website or is it a job for the pro's?

Most consumers look on the internet before going to a store. Sometimes it is their only stop: they research, compare and buy online. It goes without saying then that for a small business to reach its potential market, it should have an internet presence.

Small business operators do not often have a dedicated IT person on staff - in the past this is the person who would be given the job of building a website. It's great news then that there are now beginner-friendly website building packages on the market which are perfect for the small business person's use.

Data is entered into your web pages as one would using a word processor - with modern easy to use web builders, there is no need to know any html whatsoever.

The tutorials provided with almost all software suppliers take the novice through the process of building a website in a non-technical, easy to understand way. Having completed the tutorial, one is equipped with more than enough knowledge to launch straight into a website build.

Not all website software programs are easy to use. Small business operators do not need fully blown web design industry solutions due to the steep learning curve. One feature to look for is a WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) editor. This simply means you type on the page as you see it.

There are expenses involved in publishing your own website - you get nothing for nothing. Apart from the cost of the software (there are free web builders however they are more difficult to use or too basic in features), a small business (or an individual or a large company) will need to register a domain name (less than $10) and find a web hosting service (around $8 per month).

Businesses should also set up a merchant's account from an organization like Paypal (free). Having a third party handle financial transactions is always reassuring for consumers and takes away an administration burden. When an item has been ordered via your website and paid for, Paypal advises you, with delivery instructions so that you can fulfill the order or if it is an electronic delivery, this part can be automated.

In any small business time is money, and the time spent learning a new skill like website building with easy to use software must be seen as a good investment. It is possible to build multiple websites so that you can have a website network feeding a central business. This is ideal for multi-brand retailers and multi-branch operators. This degree of control will reap rewards as your business grows and you build different websites to cater to changing needs.

Because you have built and are managing your website yourself, you are able to instantly react to changing trends and new opportunities. Avoid delays by not having to wait for your webmaster to make changes. Fresh content on your website is highly desirable.

Some website programs are specifically designed to assist the business person become an internet business marketer, and as your knowledge of web design grows, the more you will value search engine optimization and site map generation tools. Having a correctly designed site map helps search engines easily match your site to search requests.

If you decide to look at other ways to earn money through your website without doing a thing, you will no doubt look at including on your site some affiliate marketing and advertisements from non compete companies.

Features to look for:

Ideally you will have an instructional video, help desk support and forums. Look for testimonials from other business owners to see how they have applied the software.

Getting started is the next step once you arrive at the conclusion that a website is no longer a luxury - it is essential!

Page titles

To help obtain high page rankings with search engines, the contents of your page title are one of the most important things that need to be dealt with. The page title is the first amount of information provided to a search engine describing the contents of the page. You should also be aware that the page title provides information about the contents not only to search engines, but to visitors as well. The page title will show up at the top of the browser window. Your page title should include your keywords and should be no longer than 60 characters long. If it is too long, your visitor will only see the first part. An easy way to figure out the length of a page title is to type it into a word processor that contains a word count feature. Since your page title needs to be a certain length, it is important to make the best use of the space, and although some words that are not key, will use up that valuable space, the title itself still needs to make sense. A keyword in your title can be repeated, but having the same words more than two times is not recommended. Compare your page title to others and see what makes their content look appealing enough to catch a potential visitor's eyes. Your page title needs to stand out between the other nine titles on the search engine results page. As you design your site, remember the fact that visitors may be directed to somewhere other than the homepage because the search engine believes it is the best match for a keyword. With this in mind, all pages of your website should be considered unique and have their own title.

Meta tags

For your site to be effective, you need to develop Meta tags. These tags are a site description and a keyword list. It is important to note that not all search engines use these Meta tags. Starting with your home page, you will need to insert two Meta tags. The first is a Meta description sentence and the second is a Meta keyword list. The information you put here is for search engines to use when they review your site. This review process is known as crawling and is done with a program called a spider or robot. The description tag serves two purposes. The spiders search it for keywords and it is also displayed to a surfer as they view search engine results. The information obtained by the spiders is kept in a database that is used when a person types in a query to a search engine. When you create your Meta keyword list, order them from the most relevant to the least. The first part of your list should contain the keywords that best describe your site and are unique enough that when someone does a search, there is not a large amount of competition to go up against. Make sure that all the keywords used in the description tags are again listed. The words at the end of your list are known as wildcards and include synonyms and words that could have been spelled wrong when someone was doing a search. During your Meta tag creation process, do not be afraid to go to other people's websites and see what they have used. Type in the same words you would like to include in your lists and see what the search engines display. This is a very good way to help determine your competition.

Here are essential things that you have to understand in web development.

1. Web appearance and Usability

Most newcomers often think that appearance of web site is the measurement of how it will fare in terms of traffic and visitors visiting the site but this premise is not totally true.

Yes, appearance is really important in web design but it is not the sole measurement of success of a site. Of course it will not be good to see if the site is shabby and not maintained properly but aside from appearance, you have to consider the usability of each content and links that you have posted there.

If example you posted large beautiful image but it is unrelated to content of your site, do you think your reader will appreciate that? No, viewers will likely appreciate a relatively small image related to your content than an image that is totally unrelated no matter how pretty it is.

Usability is a key in web design. Do not just put pretty but totally unnecessary images. All images and links should be useful to your site.

If you are building a portfolio, post only related sample projects that you have previously work and you don't have to mention the projects that you did not accept.

If you want use the site to sell products, it will be better if you describe them in brief and concise way and avoid unnecessary description.

2. Purpose

What is the purpose of your web site? Do you want to earn additional income? Do you want to use the site to display your portfolio? Or do you want to sell and trade goods?

Purpose will likely to give you the design that you need. If you are a member of affiliate marketing, then you have to post marketing ads to your site to generate income through pay-per-click method.

If you are designing a web site to use it as your portfolio, then you have to post there your resume and sample projects that you have done in the past.

If you would like to sell or trade goods, then you can have to post all your products, pricelist and payment options in the web site.

3. Information

Information enriched websites are the ones who always get new visitors everyday. There are many web sites being launched in the Internet everyday but not all these web sites will offer new and updated information everyday or every week. Most of these web sites will likely to offer the same articles and tidbits for the rest of the year.

If you don't update your site often, your visitors will likely to loose interest in visiting your site, as there will be another site to offer new and more exciting articles and contents.

Competition is hard in web sites that is why you have to keep it updated to current new trends and new information to make them return to your site.

You can consider weekly newsletter as part of your web design. This is one way to keep your site interesting and informative to readers.