Sooner or later, the question will arise, either in your business or personal life, "How do I get a web site? How can I establish a presence on the Internet?" When that happens, you can be prepared with answers related some or all of the following questions:

• Why do I want to have a web site? A web site represents you, your interests, or your business to the more than 500 million people who click onto the World Wide Web during the course of an average day. What do you want to say to them? Who do you want them to see you as? What do you want to sell them? Knowing these answers in advance can help you focus on the job ahead.

•What all is involved with acquiring a web site to suit my needs? This answer is somewhat complex. Assuming that you are not conversant in the language of the net (Hyper Text Markup Language or HTML as it is called), you will need a Webmaster, a person who is directly responsible for creating your pages to your specs or taste. This is a technical responsibility in that he (she) codes the site and updates it with your settings. Or you can, in fact code the site yourself, using Microsoft Front Page, a program that does much of the work with a minimum of hassle beyond learning its use.

A domain name must be secured. It is not possible to simply be www. (yourname.com) just because you say so. Many many combinations of names are already taken so you might well have to accept a variation. For example, when a Pensacola shopkeeper decided to take his police supply business on-line, he wanted the name www.sharpstuff.com, which was already taken. Fortunately, www.sharpstuffUSA was at that moment unclaimed, allowing him a good domain name which opened up all manner of possibilities with the "USA" suffix, while retaining the much needed "dotcom TDL (Top Level Domain).

The same thing occurred with the "larcodile" guy, who settled for www.larcodiletours.com, a domain that luckily fit his needs perfectly.

Next you need to secure hosting. Hosting is literally the space you rent, on which you place your domain so that the world can come to you.

Your purchase of hosting can be as little as $120 a year or as much as $360 a year with the sky being the limit and the average, with reasonable features being around $300 or roughly $25 per month. For that money you receive an email presence (as in You@yourdomain.com), ample storage space (usually 50 to 250 MB) and ample bandwidth (usage) allowance to your needs.

•For what kind of expenses should I budget? Hosting services, as mentioned in the previous paragraph are available in a variety of ranges.

Initial web design, if contracted out can be as little as $125 or as much as $5000, depending on complexity and levels of security for taking of credit cards and etc. Average fair price for design would be about $500 negotiable.

A webmaster or "person who maintains or deals on demand with issues related to your site can be found for as little as $100 per month or less, depending on his skill level and your demand level, all the way to $500 to $1000 per month by the same criterion. Certainly, a few minor changes is less expensive than multimedia reworks and complex add on’s.

Hosting and webmastering might be offered as a package, wherein the host acts as designer, webmaster and maintains your space as well. Seldom will the host actually physically own the computer on which you are located, but in the case of ISP hosts such as Network Telephone, or Southeastern Computer Center (ISP) the host box is on the premises.

• How can I make my "DotCom" a success? Books have been written on that very question. There is no definitive short answer. However, I can pass you on some tips.

(1) Design - Your web site is a window through which the world can see into your life, business or world. Dress it up. Make people feel welcome. The web is a graphic place so use color, design and even (sparingly) sound to jazz up the space

(2) Speedy Loading - Whatever else you do, make sure that your front page takes no longer than 60 seconds to load onto a 56KBS modem. Surfers have notoriously short attention spans and will "click away" if your site loads slowly. Don’t assume that a motivated surfer will wait for a slow load to complete. He won’t.

(3) Submit to Search Engines or, in certain cases, pay for position - If your site’s success depends on a large number of "hits" (visitors), such as in real Estate, or Architect or the selling of stuff, you may be justified in buying a position on a search engine. Otherwise, carefully prepare your home page with meta tags and keywords, then "free submit" to all available Search Engines for you to be listed. Include your DotCom address every time you advertise, and do that frequently, using both analog choices such as Gulf Coast Computing or Breezes magazines or digitally, on Internet placement sites like www.The DirectoryLink.com, an on-line "yellow Pages directory.

Having your own web site can be an adventure. You can also just as easily create "The Web Site From Hell" by not carefully weighing your options.

Some people you can call for help:

Karin 456-1612 Squished Mosquito

Bob 438-2317 Rider

Mark 432-2066 Southeastern

Brian 433-2772 Emerald Coast

Stan 202-7171 Connect

Dale 393-0259 GH-1

Or you can email your question to editor@gulfcoastcomputing.com or gh1@gh1.com