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Some consider it the First step and they are probably right. All the issues described in previous sections are heavily dependent on this Step.

1. Your Target Audience

You may know this already, you plan about what your target audience is, it can be teens, businessman or people within certain age groups. This is one thing that will impact right how the content is created, managed and presented. So, ponder this thought carefully, identify the possible groups and if need arises either chose between groups or create multiple channels or even multiple web sites for a single product or message. Admit it, you can't have the same offering for a 15-25 age group and 45-55 age group.

2. Content

Obviously, you should know what do you want to say. It is a good idea to first create the headlines and divide your web site into sections. Like for a small business web site you would like to show:

1. Title - It can be your business or brand name or slogan or even your domain name

2. Company Profile

3. Image of Company's logo and pictures of Office, Factory, Shop or Home, family, yourself

4. Products Lists and Details. While most do not provide prices, remember they teach in management schools that free publishing of prices help your sales.

5. Images of Product's (and) Manufacturing Facilities, sections of home like kitchen, garden

6. Suggestions to select right models, if many exist or enquiry guidelines if you provide custom made products with as much technical details as possible.

7. Online Enquiry and Feedback Form

8. Means and ways to contact you

9. Past Performances. If you can provide appreciation certificates from your customers, even better, otherwise, it is advised to atleast provide list of customers.

10. Directors Profile - very important, this creates confidence. The major drawback of internet media is that it is too abstract, it is difficult to differentiate between wolves and sheep 

11. Resources - Links to relevant pages like Associations for technical standards, your friend's web sites, your city, country portal. Some even have the guts to add Search Engines like AltaVista to their sites to allow their visitors to search for products and some even provide links to their customers and some even to their competitors. But, don't overdo it.

12. Counters to give you the idea about the number and type of hits to your pages.

3. Overview of Web site

"The way you look, is the way you are"

 Although not necessary, but, this is how it will work on the internet. So, a good design encompasses:

• The way your web site looks

• The way the navigation is made

• The way you use graphics and other elements to brighten up your web site

• The ease with which your web site can be maintained, updated and evaluated

An important point is 

`Designing of your web site is not the same thing as designing pamphlet or brochure for your company'

The web is an interactive medium and you will benefit immensely if you can harness this potential. You can have a feedback from your users anonymously about what they think about your web site or your business offering, immediately a frank assessment. Although, this remains a difficult task nowadays. Another point is, it requires lots of programming and graphics to make your web site that jazzy like your printed literature, and that, apart from costing money, makes your web site slooow and difficult to maintain. Is it a coincidence that the top most web sites on the internet like Yahoo.com or Google.com are very - very simple in design - with very little graphics, white background, black text, standard blue underlined links and standard Times new Roman or Arial or Verdana Font ? Hmm, even we are not that drab though.

i. Designing your Home Page or Welcome screen

"First Impression is the Last impression"

So, the main page or the index page (another name for Home Page) should:

• Load Quickly

• Initiate the user's interest

• Indicate the theme and content of the web site

• Present the main menu of the web site, with a little indication or description of what each subject it holds for them

ii. Graphics and Multimedia

They add the pep to your web site. They make it attractive and .... well slow. So, this is always a web designers dilemma. General guidelines or things to be careful about are:

• They can give cluttered appearance to your web site

• They can create problems for users with special needs like those using voice readers.

• As already mentioned, they slow the loading for your web pages

So, as with any publication (yes, you may compare your web site with publication) you use Graphics on your web site where ever they are needed, where they are appropriate. You do not overdo it, and you can use a little of them to make your web site attractive. They can range from animated images, photographs to simple line drawings. Recent Technological advancements in software, internet and multimedia allow streaming of other media elements like movies and sounds to the web screen. A sound can start playing the moment a screen starts loading, or you can show a movie, like web cast a particular process in your factory, or your marriage ceremony. They do require special pug-ins with the users and that can be a bad experience for some visitors to your web site. A good option is to make it optional for the user to enjoy them. Times are changing and changing fast. With the advent of Broadband internet ISP connections, over time, multimedia of all sorts will become much more common on the web as access becomes faster and software improves.

Copyright law in most countries protects the content on the internet also. Although, not very common, and internet, by its very nature, makes it very easy for others to take text, graphics from your web site, Copyright still provides some degree of legal protection.

iii. Encourage Feedback

The feedback from your users can be a very effective tool in making them feel at home with you via your web site. It is generally advised that you:

• Encourage users to send you emails as a form of feedback detailing their responses to your web site

• provide users with forms they can fill and submit online. The results can be collected in a database and analysed quite fruitfully.

• When you do happen to meet someone who has actually visited your web site, ask them how they feel about it, whether they found it useful or their is some criticism or suggestion. By the way, you can give your feedback regarding our web site and especially this article to me at ashish@4eit.com

• One way to encourage visitors to your web site to become physical visitors to your organisation is to provide `Online Specials'. For example, A form printed out from your web site, could promote discounts on entry fee or purchases.

iv. Finally, Actual Designing

Now Comes the actual designing in HTML files. HTML means Hyper Text Markup Language, and it is just that. An HTML file is like a text file, with special commands or tags to display text, embed images and other multimedia files and link to other files. Some of the commands are:

Display Link: 4eIT.com

Command : <p><a href="http://www.4eit.com">4eIT.com</a></p>

Display Bold Line

Command: <p><b>4eIT.com</b></p>

Embed image

Command: <p><img border="0" src="../images/fort.jpg" width="110" height="82"></p>

Don't be afraid of the above commands. These are just examples to show you what goes on behind the stage. Actually, it is much easier to create HTML pages, as easy as writing a word star letter. You can create your page in Microsoft Word and save it in HTML format, it is one of the options when you save in using "Save As" in File menu of Word. Another great way is to use Microsoft Front Page, HTML editor that comes free with you internet browser Microsoft Internet Explorer. Another such HTML editor also comes and free with Netscape Navigator. So, all you need to do is write your messages, Format them in presentable format with Bold, Italics, colours and sizes etc, embed a few links and images and voila, you can have some sort of web site all by your self ! I can already hear web programmers swearing to kill me.

However, this is good option for maybe a personal family web site only. A good professional web site is best left to Professionals. (You are right: This statement has not been made to save my life and livelihood). To make an impact with a visitor and enough impact to actually make them part from their hard earned money in you favour, needs some professional expertise, which only we (web site designers) can provide. Besides, web pages these days are complex things with search engine optimisation and submission, without which your web site is like a rock show in the middle of Sahara desert.