One of the great wonders of the World Wide Web is that it is a great leveler. It gives access to millions of people to fantastic information and purchasing potential. Over 250,000 people per month gain access to the web world wide and many of these enter the internet for less than $1,000 a year.

The internet market, thanks to the greater ease of access is surging ahead exponentially. So how is it a leveler? Web pages are presented in virtual space. The browser, or surfer, is not interested in where the company is based or how large it is, all of these are transparent to them. With a visually effective web page a small to medium company can compete with other larger companies.

So

The recipe for an attractive website consists of: a web programming tool, a domain name, a company to host your web, an effective design backed by a good business strategy, some time each month to maintain and update the website and, or course, something to say or sell.

Take care not to economize on your domain name. This is the address that your website is known by. Whilst it may be tempting to take the cheaper option and use the free space offered by most internet package providers, don't unless your budget is really tight. The web address www.hostsite/yourcompany.co.uk does not look as impressive as www.yourcompany.co.uk . The cost of the latter starts at about $9 per year and hosting your site is about $100 per year. There are free web hosters available but these will subject your visitors to annoying adverts and more importantly - usually poor support.

For your hosting - this involves undertaking an informed choice. To start with, you need simple, reliable hosting. You obviously need email - but I have yet to find a hosting company that does not offer this. Bandwidth - the amount of traffic allowed to get to you site is the most expensive part usually. Think of bandwidth as a water pipe - the bigger it is the more people will be able to see your site. Next you need web logs - which tell you how many people have visited your site, where they came from and what pages they looked at. As you get more proficient - PHP and MySQL would be useful - this is a database and software combination that will help you with put functionality on your web site.

Do a simple search or buy any internet magazine and there are a considerable number of companies that will host your website and offer e-mail forwarding and other goodies. The best way of finding your ideal host company is to detail your requirements and then send them to a few likely companies. The best reply (that you can understand) is the company for you.

Now to the area that puts a lot of people off - the design and build of the website. This is not as difficult as many people think. Templates with simple click and build facilities are readily available or you can visit a web site such as elance or guru and get your site built quite cheaply. The key points to remember are that the web is a visual arena, and users have a very limited attention span. Make the loading of each page quick, especially the first page, which should just fill the screen. You can then offer links to other areas that you want your customers to view. If you want to sell from your site, most credit card merchants now offer shopping carts and easy set up.

Keep changing your web site in order to encourage repeat visits. Add competitions, special offers, jokes or information. Keep adding content - many people visit web sites looking for information.

Now the vital lesson. If you are going to sell on your website then you need the supporting business facilities to support enquiries and the selling and delivery of your products.

You've set up your website, now you have to let the world know that you have arrived. There are four ways, in order of effectiveness: Search Engines, Portals, Market Sites and Marketing.

* Search Engines are used by surfers when they want information on a particular subject. Where ever possible, go to "add URL" on each site and follow the instructions. The major search engines usually require a payment on submission. Don't fall for the top ten listing in Google adverts - it is impossible to guarantee this.
* Portals are groups of like-minded sites that can all be accessed from one major site or portal. Examples are sports information or small business information.
* A Market is a group of merchants, usually grouped geographically or by product or service, who all use a central website to advertise on. Examples are groups of realtors/estate agents, medical services or "Our Town".
* Marketing can be via banner exchanges, complimentary links, quoting your website on all your correspondence or the most effective of all - pay per click advertising.

Most importantly, before you set your website up, decide what your business strategy is going to be. Are you going to: inform, sell, seek AdSense or similar revenue, or a combination of all three. Make sure that this strategy fits in with the rest of your business. A website can be time consuming but it can also be very rewarding. Good luck.

Lee Lister

Lee Lister is Management Consultant and Program Manager with more than 25 year's management and consultancy experience and more than 20 year's program and project management experience in projects for Banking, Finance, Insurance, Leisure and Government bodies. She also have more than 10 years bid management experience ranging from bids for medium companies to large international and infrastructure bids.

British born, Lee received her BA(Hons) Financial Economics from the University of Essex. She went on to work in or for a considerable number of countries within Asia and Europe as well as Australia and the United States. While building a name for herself through helping company restructure, change management and project management consultancy, Lee became a well-known figure for her skills in analyzing, problem solving and trouble-shooting. She has consulted for many major industries, including banking, telecommunications, insurance, transportation, leisure and governments from many different countries. Some of the companies who have benefited from Lee?s expertise are Hewlett Packard, Siemans Nixdorf, Electrolux and the Philippines government.

Whilst working in the Far East she became a recognized expert on preparing and evaluating large World Bank Proposals (infrastructure projects within developing countries). These accomplishments called upon the skills of bid and project management, risk assessment, contract negotiation and supplier management and required dedicated work to very tight time scales. This expertise was acknowledged by an invitation to be the principle speaker at an International Business Development Conference in Washington, USA. She has also consulted at very senior level in several countries.

She owns and manages two companies, Biz Guru LLC in the USA and Biz Guru Services Ltd in the UK as well a considerable number of profitable web sites. She works almost entirely via the internet, visiting clients on site during major consultancies and training. Her Internet skills span from when major companies first started to consider obtaining their own web sites. During these years, she has kept up to date with the rapid changes on the internet, including the dot com boom and the resulting bust ? which her own web based companies survived.

She regularly consults, writes and lectures on business, bid management and marketing and has published numerous courses and books.

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