What does it take for a successful website?

Hosting features to look for:

Free -- Actually, this is a feature you don't want. You can get this kind of hosting from a number of portals but it's hard to say it is really without costs. To support the hosting, banner ads for various companies appear at the top of your pages. Even worse, you may get popup pages for other businesses every time someone accesses a page, even if they are just clicking on the "back" button. This is really annoying to your visitors.
This type of site comes across as, "We're too cheap to pay for a real website." These sites also lack the features needed for e-commerce.

Storage -- This refers to the amount of room you have available on the server's hard drive for your files. Text on web pages takes up very little room. However, if you have many pictures and graphics, you will need more space. The same applies for database information.
I've seen some hosting provides as little as 2 megs of space. 10 megs of space is common but I don't consider this enough for an active, growing site. A minimum for an e-Commerce site should be 50 megs. This would be adequate for a small business with few products or services. We provide 200 megs at about the same price you might pay for 50 megs.

Programming -- It is difficult to run a website of any size without the use of programming. This allows you to provide dynamic content, track visitors through your site, and create interactive pages. Site automation can also greatly reduce the time required to update and maintain your site.
We provide Perl with your own CGI-bin so you can have custom programming or the use of the many free Perl programs available on the web. Crontab is another feature that let's you run programs on a schedule that you set up. This could include automatically emailing you reports on site traffic and sales.

eCommerce -- If you are a business, you want your website to become a profit center, not a drag on your resources. We include shopping cart software for your customers to order services and products.

Design

More than a look -- You may think of design as the look of your web pages. However, we believe design starts with concept. What is the purpose of the site? Is it just informational or do you want to generate sales? If you haven't decided what you want to do with your site, your visitors won't be able to decide, either.

Functionality -- Your website should be design to be easy to navigate. A good rule of thumb is that anything on your site should be accessible within three clicks of the mouse. Difficult navigation will not only frustrate your visitors, they may leave before they find what they are looking for and before they find what you are trying to sell them.
Functionality should also be considered when it comes to updating and maintaining your website. Through the use of style sheets and server-side includes, you should be able to update the navigation and look of your entire site by modifying only one or two small text pages. Programming and a good database can dynamically change information on many pages without doing any editing to the pages themselves. These techniques can save you a lot of time.

Bells and whistles -- For some reason, many website owner's seem to think that if it doesn't move, no one will see it. You can fall into this trap, too, if you are not careful. "Bells and whistles," as I call them, have no other function than to attract attention. They slow downloads. They distract. They replace text that search engines use to index content.
If you are going to put something on the page, have it there for a reason. Does it improve navigation? Does it illustrate better than words? Does it help you sell? You should be able to answer "Yes."

Splash pages -- A splash page is the first page a visitor arrives at and it's purpose is to impress the visitor. It will probably have a large logo and/or animated design. It usually takes some time to load and then may or may not tell the visitor to "Enter Here." I've been to some sites where I had to move the cursor around to find out how to get in.
The best splash pages are those on your competitor's website. They form a barrier between you and the reason your visitor came to your website. They waste the visitor's time while they load. And they harm your ranking on search engines because they contain very little information to index. The best advice is: Don't.

Traffic

What if you gave a party and no one came? That's the feeling of many website owners. They thought all that we needed was a great-looking website. But if no one can find it, no one will come.

Search engine submission -- When your website has been completed (if one ever really "completes" a website), it must be submitted to the search engines. This can be a very slow and time-consuming process.
There are only about ten search engines that are of any real importance. However, the criteria for ranking pages is constantly changing so pages must be continually tweaked and the resulting rankings measured. Some engines may take six or eight weeks before the submission will have any effect so monitoring rankings is important.

Page optimization -- Designing pages without considering how it will rank on the search engines may leave you wanting for visitors.
Meta tags in the head of web pages can assist rankings on some engines. The "description" tag allows you to write a description that will be displayed with you listing. If this is neglected, you description may contain whatever words appear at the beginning of the body of your page.
The "keyword" meta tag allows you to specify which words are used in finding your site. Careful consideration should be given to how visitors search for your site. This could make a difference as to whether they find your page or your competitor's page.

Tracking visitors -- To fully develope your website, you need know which pages your visitors are viewing. This will help you know your sites strengths and weaknesses.
If a page gets few visits, you may need to update or fine-tune the content to make it more relevant. If a page receives many visits, you may want to give more information on that subject.