You want a web site, but don’t know where to start? Let me see if I can help. This blog article is dedicated to my dad who called me today and said “Kris, I need a web site.” This got me thinking that I really need to put out an official article on what to do to get started. So here is my step by step guide to help point you in the right direction to start your web site project. Hopefully this will help answer some of your questions.

1. Decide what kind of web site you want.

- Is your site strictly informational? This would be a online portfolio or business card. Somewhere for web users to find you and get information on your services and how to contact you.
- Is your site a blog or user interactive site? This means that you have information that is updated regularly and your visitors can interact with your site through comments or subscribing to your news feed.
- Is your site an ecommerce site? You sell products or services directly from your web site. You will most likely need a cart to process orders and maintain stock.

2. Research your market’s internet presence.

- What do others in your field or market have for web sites?
- What information is available on them?
- When looking at other sites what is the general feel and do you want your site to follow market standards or do you want a different feel?

3. Find your designer/web developer.

- If you are not proficient in web coding, I highly suggest hiring a designer. They will help walk you through these steps and tell you what you need for the different features you may want on your site. Oh, and just in case you didn’t already realize it… Web Savvy Mama is a web designer. Hi there, nice to meet you. You can fill out a quote request on my contact page for more information.

4. Get your domain and hosting.

- I recommend finding the designer first because the designer may have certain hosts they recommend or if you need a cart can tell you what hosts are compatible. Sometimes carts come with hosting plans.
- Your domain is the address for your web site. Its your dot.com. Hosting is your space. Think of these as your house is the hosting where you live, but your address (domain) is the address where you receive your mail and tells people where your house is. Domains run around $10 a year and hosting runs anywhere from $3 a month and more. Your designer can tell you what type of plan you will need.

5. The design process.

-You know what you want and have the physical space for it on the web. Now the designing part begins. Depending on your designer these steps may vary, I’ll list the order in which Web Savvy Mama does them.
- Logo, first the logo is worked on and approved by the client. The look of the site is based on this logo so its a pretty integral part of the process.
- Mockup, before you get too far in you’ll want to make sure the designer and client are on the same page for design (look) of the site. Therefore a full scale visual mockup is done that represents how the site will look. This is the longest phase when working with Web Savvy Mama. I want to make sure you have a great representation of what your site will look like and make any changes necessary before we start coding.
- After the mockup is approved the coding begins. This is when the designer actually codes the website so that it looks like the graphical mockup. Graphics are created and functionality is given. The site is coming to life.
- The site is installed. Once the coding is done the pages or template are loaded to the site (or cart/blog).
- From here the client is able to start loading content or if additional services have been purchased, Web Savvy Mama does this.

Your site is done, now what? Read on for tips on web site promoting and getting traffic!