You have a place to store your information. You have a name for your website.

A good website is made up of three parts: content, functionality, and design. The most important part of any website is the content.

Put yourself in the position of one of the people who will be coming to your website. What will they be looking for? What will they want to see? Why are they here? If you don't know the answers to these questions, then you need to start asking the people who have the answers to tell you what they need. If you run a store take note of the kinds of questions your customers ask. Have anyone who answers the phone write down the questions that they're asked.

What if the commodity you are advertising is yourself? This is especially important for writers and other artists. People who come to your website want to see samples of your art. They may be looking to be entertained. Agents or publicists may be looking for proof that you know what you're doing. If you are a published author, fans may be looking for a place to talk about your work, a chance to get to know you better, or the opportunity to buy your book or other memorabilia. Many people would rather buy a book or art from the artist rather than from a big store. Giving people the opportunity to purchase autographed material can meet their need over and above what they expect.

Each website has unique content. Taking the time to thoughtfully and carefully design your content will make the difference between your website being a success or failure. Content should also change or be added to. Want some ideas? Read this wonderful article from Mark Bernstein.

Much is made in modern-day web design of the term search engine optimization. What this means is that if the search engine's don't like you then no one will be able to find your site. Search engines use a technology referred to as spiders to crawl the web following links researching each and every new webpage that's added to the Internet. They compiled these lists and add in factors like relevance and customer satisfaction, and from this information they decide what websites are returned and in what order when a person performs a search on the Internet. There is no easy way to get into the number one position. If someone tells you that for a certain amount of money they can get you to that number one position, don't trust them. There is no magic formula. The best feature that you can offer is rich content that meets the needs of your customers and encourages them to send their friends to your site. Keep your customers happy, keep them coming back, and the search engines will find you and will rank you appropriately.

One factor in search engine ranking is history. The amount of time that your website exists will raise your ranking. It is very hard for a new site to rank above an old site. but it is not impossible.

Another factor to keep in mind is that search engines spiders cannot see any graphics. A fancy Flash splash screen opening will often show up to a search engine as a blank page. For writers in particular, the written word is important, but in a website it is the heart of success.