Determine what style and size web site to best fit your needs.
A website is basically a method of marketing. It should reflect the company's or group's public image. The site should be interesting enough to attract users but strong enough to be taken seriously.

Register your domain name (mysite.com) and get started with an ISP
A domain name costs $10-$30 per year and is separate from hosting fees. There are Internet Service Providers (ISP) who will pay the fee for you if you use them as a host. Hosting fees vary widely depending on how much space, what kind of services and if you must carry their advertisements. Some companies offer free hosting, but their advertisements will be displayed on your site.

Create graphics that reflect your public image and your audience.
Graphics are wonderful things. They are great attention-getters if used properly. But if that whiz-bang graphic takes 5 minutes to download, your audience will probably not stick around to see it. Keep in mind what type of internet access your audience has. Is it basic dialup? Is it DSL? There's a big difference between the two.

Create a user-friendly site.
Content should be clear and well organized. Your website is there to provide information - what you sell, where and when you meet or what you're like. It should also be current because products and meeting schedules change. Keep in mind that frustrated users won't come back. They'll just get the product or information from somewhere or someone else.

Promote your site to your target audience.
Again, think of a website as a way of marketing your group. Search engines are a great start. They're widely used and are probably the starting point for most internet-users. Not only is it important to get listed in search engines, but to use the right keywords in your listings. That way, your website will be displayed in the results of someone's search.

Follow up with traffic analysis to be certain that your goals were met.
It's important to go back over a site to see where it can be improved. What pages are getting lots of hits and are they easy to get to? How are people getting to your site? What kind of feedback are you getting?

So how much is this going to cost?
Acorn Hill will meet with you to determine the size and nature of the project. A flat fee may be agreed upon if the project is building a site from scratch. Perhaps an hourly fee would be more appropriate for small sites or just intermittent updates. For more information, please contact Acorn Hill.