Now you may have some concerns that allowing anyone to add content and links to your site is inviting your competitors to steal your traffic. If your site has detailed reviews of products on your site, anyone who leaves your site to visit a competitor won't spend much time there before realizing that your site has useful, original content that they can't find anywhere else. If that doesn't put your mind at ease, though, there's nothing to stop you from including a disclaimer when someone submits a review. Explain in this disclaimer that direct references to your competitors will be removed to keep reviews informative and to avoid marketing hype. You are webmaster, after all.

You can draw even more traffic by allowing visitors to rate usefulness of each review. Many reviewers will encourage people to visit your site so they can read and rate review. More important than just being a gimmick to increase traffic, rating reviews allows you to sort them by quality and expose your average visitors to best possible content first.

Promote it! Once you've got code in place, it's important to publicize this new feature of your website. If you have experience or know someone with experience writing press releases, you may be able to garner attention from news and niche media. Another highly effective form of publicity is to mention new feature above fold on main page of your site.

If you have a newsletter, promote review process in your next issue. In fact, as you begin to accumulate reviews, they can serve as great additional content for your newsletter. Simply include best reviews in each issue. As with reviews on your website, you are providing valuable content for your audience, giving your reviewer great exposure, and saving time for yourself. It's a win-win-win situation.

Web hosting companies are not created equal so you need to take a number of things into account when selecting one. A proven track record, experience and reliability form foundation of any successful business partnership.

Some of issues you should consider when choosing a webhosting company include:

1. Support - Does it provide comprehensive Technical Support - 24 hours a day, seven days a week?

2. Reliability - Does it have multiple large-scale links to internet to provide a fail-safe path to your customers from anywhere in world?

3. Security - Does it have a robust security system that minimises risk of web site intrusion?

4. State-of-the-art - Does company utilises leading edge technology and is supported by a large-scale uninterruptible power supply (UPS) system.

5. Scalability - Does product range and services offered allow your business to grow without impediment by making it easy to upgrade and add components to existing product levels.

Step 4 - Getting people to your site.

The marketing of your website is important if you want to draw visitors to your site. If you don't promote your website no-one will ever see it. There are a number of different ways of advertising your website. The best strategy is one, which integrates your existing promotion methods with your website.

1. Office Stationery - Including your web address and email address on your stationery is probably easiest way to draw attention to your site. It's cost effective and gets your Internet presence out there in market place.

2. Business Cards - When printing business cards you should include individual's email address and main address of your website.

3. Radio Advertising Radio Advertising should include your web address. Don't include http://, try "Visit us on internet at w-w-w-dot-qikphone-dot-com-dot-au". If your budget is limited, you may wish to consider community radios.

4. Email and Mail-Outs Let your current customers know details of your website. You can either send them an email or a letter/postcard. Keep your website's content up-to-date and they will keep coming back!

5. Print Media Print advertising should include a generic email address for company and include your website address. Normally positioned at bottom right or bottom centre of your advertisement.

6. Search Engines & Directories People looking for your website who don't know URL are most likely to use an on-line search engine to look for your organisation or kind of products and services you offer. There are over 300 major search engines and directories, but you should concentrate on larger, more commonly used ones. These include: Google, Yahoo, Altavista, Anzwers, Inktomi, Infoseek, Lycos, Excite, HotBot, MSN, Dogpile, AllTheWeb etc.

7. Links from other websites A good way to attract visitors to your site is through use of hyperlinks placed on other sites. If you know of another site which has a list of links and you think your website would be a good addition, let website owner know. You might also offer to provide a link from your site back to other site. This will encourage webmaster to include your site. You should also seek out partners for trading links including vendors, suppliers and providers of complimentary products.

8. Link Exchange Another way to getting a link is through a system called Link Exchange, a free public service designed to help websites advertise each other. With Link Exchange, you agree to display advertising banners for other Link Exchange members and they agree to display banners for you. The System is automatic, you simply add a piece of HTML code to your web page and Link Exchange will display an advertisement for another website. The disadvantage with Link Exchange is that you don't get any control as to where your banner ad appears or type of banner ads that will appear on your website. It is not possible to guarantee that a competitor of yours may have their banner ad displayed on your site.

9. Paid Banner Advertising/Affiliate Marketing Programs Various sites give you opportunity to purchase banner advertising on their site. Some sites will charge you a flat monthly fee while other sites will charge you based on number of people who see your ad.

Step 5 - Monitor your site's statistics

Your website's statistics should show who visits your website, where in world they come from, how they are finding your site and what pages are being viewed. Knowing your customers is first step in effective marketing. Most webhosting companies will provide access to this information free of charge.

Step 6 - Maintaining your website

It is important to update your website regularly to keep your customers interested. One of great advantages of having a website is that you can change its content virtually overnight at minimal cost (unlike re-printing brochures and flyers).

This is just a brief overview of process involved in getting your website up and running. In future articles we will cover each step in more detail.

Ivana Katz is the owner of Websites 4 Small Business, a company specialising in the design and promotion of small and home-based business websites. She believes that every business deserves to have a successful website, no matter what its budget is. For more information visit www.web4business.com.au or email info@web4business.com.au