It's time for your company to go live. Live on the Internet, that is. The first step to building your presence on the Internet is to design a website that customers will want to visit -- and come back to. Getting customers to stay long enough to explore your website is like getting them to stay at a store. Like a store, your website should be attractive and professional looking.

    Most important: Whatever your business offers -- whether it's a product, a service, or information, it should be easy to access on your site.

    Whether you're building a site from scratch or updating your existing site, you've got a few options. Your goals for the site determine the options you should go with, so make sure you've got those nailed down first. Ask yourself: What does your company want to achieve with the site?

• Will you use the site to dispense information?  

• Do you merely want a Web presence so customers can find you online?  

• What sections do you want in your site? (e.g. About your company, company history, product pages, executive bios)  

• Do you want your site to act as a virtual salesperson, performing online transactions?  

• Will you need to develop any special tools for users to interact with your site?  

• Do you already have a logo that your site designer must incorporate in their design?  

• About how many pages are you looking to have designed?  

• Do you want your site to be structured to help gather data for marketing purposes?

    The following is a checklist of questions you should keep handy when interviewing potential web designers.

• Are they capable of adding any back-end functions to your design?
   

• Are they willing to design around items you've already had designed by someone else, such as your company logo?
   

• If you don't have a company logo designed already, are they capable of designing one?
   

• Do they offer search engine optimization?
   

• Ask how long they have been in the business and who their current clients are. This would also be a good time to get the names and numbers for references.
   

• Have they won any Web design awards? Which ones? (It's a nice sign if they have, but don't be dismissive if they haven't. There are only so many Web design awards to go around.)
   

• If they cannot finish the project by the agreed-upon date, will they continue to charge the regular hourly fee to finish it?
   

• Will they be taking on other projects while working on yours? If your project is large and complicated, you don't want someone who may be overextending himself.  

    The cost of designing a web site is tricky business. Web designing is a relatively new profession and even web designers themselves are uncertain as to how much they should be charging since experience and abilities tend to range dramatically from person to person.

    A good independent contractor, or a member of a web design firm, will ask you questions about your specific needs and your expectations to determine the amount of time and work it will take to complete the project. Then they'll submit a bid or proposal. For best results, have each potential candidate fill out a standard form so you can compare bids.

    If you're using an independent contractor, the full cost of the project will probably be determined by the designer's hourly rate and the number of hours per day the designer plans to work on it over a specific time period.

    Some designers will be willing to negotiate a flat fee for the entire project. If you agree upon a flat fee, the designer will also have to agree upon a completion date. In either case, the hourly rate for Web design work tends to be between $50 and $100.

    You might find someone who charges less than $50 per hour, but that will likely be someone who is still fairly inexperienced. For a high-end designer, one with several successful web designs in their portfolio and/or one who is capable of developing back-end functions of the site, expect their fee to be about $100/hour, or possibly more.