Setting Your Sites On The Web A guide to creating a home page that customers will turn to.

Even the smallest of businesses can cruise the information superhighway into the global marketplace. Ask Ann Giard-Chase, owner of Joan & Annie's Brownies in Williston, Vermont, who began selling brownies in 1988 from a pushcart at fairs and festivals and then entered the wholesale market in 1990.

In 1994, trying to regain the customer intimacy lost while using wholesale distributors as middlemen, Giard-Chase created a mail order catalog and a Web site ( http://mmink.com/mmink/dossiers/jaa/brownies.html). Now her mailing list consists of over 3,000 names, and orders for her brownies come via mail and the Internet. And relations with customers have never been better. "At the carts, when the customers got the brownies, you could see the smiles on their faces," she says. Now she sees their "smiles" through their enthusiastic e-mail responses.

With an estimated 30 million users, the Internet provides a cost-effective marketing tool--especially for businesses that construct their own sites. A site on the Web serves a multitude of purposes: It fosters better communication with your customers; it increases your business's visibility; it offers your goods and services to a global market--and it can do all this quickly. "A Web site can relay information in a way that's faster, more timely and more accurate than any other medium today," says Don Middleberg, CEO of Middleberg & Associates, a New York City-based public relations agency that specializes in Internet communication.

What is the Internet?

The Internet began 25 years ago as a research project for theU.S. Department of Defense and later gained popularity atuniversities. The World Wide Web contains the multimedia portion ofthe Internet, where businesses can build their Web sites. As JillH. and Matthew V. Ellsworth explain in their book, The NewInternet Business Book (John Wiley & Sons, $24.95, http://www.wiley.com or 800-JWILEY-NET),"The Web is made up of documents on computers throughout theworld. These documents have special codes written into them thatprovide links to other documents on the Internet and dictate howthe documents are to be displayed. Computers holding these Webdocuments use software called Web servers to communicate via theInternet with client programs that are called browsers."

Browsers, which are software packages, act as a link between theInternet, the Web server and your computer (via its modem) so youcan access Internet information. For more information aboutbrowsers, consult the HotWired site (http://www.hotwired.com/).

Building Your Web Site

Web sites on the Internet are constructed of virtual pages ofinformation, which can include multimedia such as photos, video,sounds, animation or graphics. You have two main choices whenconstructing a Web site: do it yourself, or hire an expert. Optingfor the do-it-yourself method will entail wearing many hats. Youmust design your page, write your copy, select and scan thephotography and graphics into a computer, or convertcomputer-generated graphics.

If you want to create a really basic Web page with text andstationary graphics you can use a program called an HTML Editor tocreate the page. You will not need to learn Hypertext MarkupLanguage (HTML) if you are using an HTML Editor, most of which youcan download right off of the Internet. Some are free and some mustbe purchased.

If, however, you want your Web page to have animation, tables orframes, you will need to learn HTML, a set of commands thatinstructs the Web server how to display your material.

Before constructing your own Web site, observe other sites. Askyourself what works, advises Jill Ellsworth. What, to you, seemsvisually pleasing? Which sites would you visit again? Is the siteeasily navigable? Can you communicate with the site through e-mail?What would you emulate? What would you avoid?

The Whole Internet Catalog at Global Network Navigator (http://gnn.com/wic/wics/index.html)offers links (a link, or "hot button," refers you fromone Web page to another) to sites throughout the Web with their"Best of the Net Page," "50 Most-AccessedLinks" and "New Sites" sections.

Once created, your pages will be made visible to users on theInternet via an Internet service provider (ISP). The ISP puts yourWeb pages on their server, which has a live, 24-hour-a-dayconnection to the Internet. Basically, your pages sit on yourISP's Web server until another computer asks for them. Therequested information then travels from your ISP's server overthe Internet to the seeker's computer. If you're currentlyonline, check the features of your Internet provider; some ISPsoffer packages that include server space along with access.

Setting up your own page is not impossible. Nowadays, collegesoffer continuing education classes in HTML, and there are aplethora of books available. Amazon (http://www.Ama zon.com--or call 800-201-7575)offers a selection of over one million book titles, many at adiscounted price, including such books on HTML as Creating CoolWeb Pages by Dave Taylor (IDG Books Worldwide, $19.99) andUsing HTML by Tom Savola (Que Corp., $39.99).

Hiring someone to do all this makes setting up easier, but moreexpensive. Some Internet service providers offer full set-upservices. Or you may want to hire a Web consultant or graphics firmto design the site, and obtain the domain name, or Internetaddress, and a service provider yourself. If you do hire someone todesign your Web site, be sure you own the copyright to the work, soyou can alter the site in any way you want--and have completecontrol over it without paying any future fees to the designer.

A domain name is any name that represents an address on theInternet. Inter-Networking Information Center (InterNIC) (http://www. Internic.net) tracks and assignsdomain names within the United States. (Every country has its owntracking center.) The names are distributed on a first-come,first-served basis and cost $50 a year. According to The InternetBusiness Center (http://home.tig.com/cgi-bin/genobject/ibc),as of May, 1996, over 325,000 domain names have been registered atInterNIC.

Your Web Site and Your ISP

Consider your ISP a business partner--a partner you chooseaccording to your best interests. To determine which ISP is best,ask the following questions:

• How much disk space--the space your files take up on theserver--are they giving you? "On the server, this is where youput your Web pages," says Jill Ellsworth. "Most companieshave set pricing: x amount for five meg (MB), x amount for ten meg(MB). That's good for a certain amount of traffic, but ifyou're getting half a million "hits" (the number ofusers who access a site) a month, they're going to want tocharge you more because you're taking up more computerresources." Some ISPs also charge for the amount of KBdownloaded by users, which taxes the host's server.

• Know what services your ISP provides. Besides a monthly servicecharge, most providers will bill you for "extras," like asurplus of people visiting your site, or if you decide to addpages. You need to find out exactly what is included in yourmonthly cost--and be aware of what additional charges might occur.Find out, also, what services your ISP offers. Is there a technicalsupport line? Will they give monthly reports on the number of hitsthe site had? Will they analyze the data they send you?

• Finally, does the server encrypt information, like charge cardnumbers? If you're taking orders online, this is somethingyou--and your customers--might desire.

Design Dos and Donts

Before you do anything, ask yourself the following: What messagedo you want to communicate? How many pages will that take? Howoften will you update them? How much original material must yougenerate, or can you use pre-existing information like pressreleases, brochures or menus? How much interactivity (e-mail,registration, an ordering page, a guest book) do you desire? Whatabout graphics? Will you use pictures, icons, art, animation,sounds, multimedia? "If graphics are too large, it takesseveral minutes to load your page. And if people get impatient,they'll click off your page," advises Dr. Anthony D.Mercando, president of Amadeus Multimedia Technologies Ltd., anelectronic publishing company and Web site provider in Irvington,New York.

Consider what kinds of fonts you'll use. You want your Webpages to be readable, so don't overdo the bold and italics.Patrick Converso of Sovereign Marketing ONLINE in Schaumburg,Illinois, suggests creating as much contrast on the page as youcan, yet still being judicious. So use graphics, bold type anddifferent fonts--just don't crowd too many techniques into onepage. Also, make sure that your address, telephone number ande-mail are easy to locate.

Your site should be updated every two to four weeks."We're not talking about redoing or reinventing the wheel,but we are talking about adding some new features, and updatingolder material," Middleberg says. "It's like having arestaurant; the trick in a restaurant is having people come backconstantly. The same is true for Web sites: you want people to comeback to the site--and you want them to come back frequently. Andthe way to do that is to always keep it interesting, attractive andcurrent."