The Internet has become popular among consumers. You need a website if you hope to maintain a strong market presence. This is true no matter how big or small your business and even if you do business primarily offline, according to "Entrepreneur" magazine. Your website doesn't need to be elaborate or expensive to attract customers. It just needs to look professional.
Domain Name
The first thing your website needs is a domain name, the address where people will access your site, such as yourdomainname.com. Your domain name should be easy for people to remember, meaning it should describe your company simply and end with .com. A business called Bobby's Balloons, for example, should choose a domain name like "bobbysballoons.com" instead of "cheap-party-balloons.net" to increase the likelihood that customers find the site. You can buy a domain name from a domain name registrar for less than $10 a year as of 2011.
Hosting Account
Buying a domain name doesn't give you a website. It merely reserves a name. There are two ways to get a basic website: open a free blogging account or buy a web hosting account. A blog is a website you can use with minimal programming experience. Your default blog address will be a subdomain, such as yourblog.blogprovider.com, but you can change it to your purchased domain name in your account settings. Basic web hosting accounts start as low as $4 per month.
Design
Choosing a web hosting account over a blog gives you greater control over the way your site looks, even if you don't know edit programming code. WYSIWYG, which stands for "what you see is what you get," editors allow you to design a web page using a graphical user interface instead. The most popular editor, Dreamweaver, costs $399 as of 2011, but you can download editors like KompoZer or CoffeeCup for free. If you run into any problems, you can hire programming help at flexible rates from a bidding website, such as vWorker, Elance or oDesk.
Content
Even a basic website needs fresh, well-written content to keep visitors returning. If you have the ideas for the content on your website but aren't confident in your writing abilities, you can hire a professional to do the writing for you. The same websites that allow you to search for freelance programmers also provide listings for freelance writers. Freelancers' fees vary depending on the freelancer's income needs and expertise. Look at a writer's previous work to gauge his ability to give you content you'll like.
