In this second part I will cover designing page elements of your site. The look and feel of a site is very important, and it must convey what your site is about.

A site for an artist would be a lot different in style to a site selling electrical goods.

Having planned your site already on paper you know where you want page elements to go, but now you must give some thought to their design. What will they look like? Do you want a simple background to your page or do you want something a bit different?

One of most important things to consider is download time of a page. Most people won't want to hang around while complicated large graphics slow down time it takes for them to view your site.

Keep background simple. White of a very pale colour with dark text is best. If you do want an image don't go for anything complex or large. Make image file size as small as possible and make it very pale so that you can easily read type over top. Don't make background image fight against text!!

Typeface Only use one typeface in your website. Just decide on a typeface and stick to it.

Text Just use a normal size type for main text on your page. The page heading should be a larger size and maybe in bold as well. Use a dark text on a light coloured background. Reading text on a computer screen is always harder on eyes. Most people wouldn't appreciate red text on a green background!! They would probably leave your page very quickly.

Break page up with lots of headings and small clumps of text. People read differently on a computer screen in comparison to reading a book or a paper. They tend to scan a page looking for interesting bits of information that stand out.

If you want to highlight any words that are very important either use bold or a second colour. Don't underline text as it will look like a link.

Navigation The main navigation bar is usually on left of page or under header.

If you plan to start or already have a home based business then a website is something you should give serious thought to. It's an inexpensive way to market your products and services.

If you sell products you can have an online catalogue which you can update, available 24 hours a day 7 days a week. You could set up an e-shop quite easily and accept orders from customers anywhere in world.

Building a website yourself may seem daunting if you have had little experience of internet and don't know how to use HTML, but don't despair!!

At one time website building was only for those who where technically minded and had a lot of knowledge about computers, but with some of easy to use webdesign software available you can do it.

For a very easy to use and inexpensive at £15 piece of webdesign software, download webcreator. It's great for first time webdesigners. http://www.mindscape.co.uk/products/TopProducts.asp?sst=2&cid=2&ssid=41

Frontpage is fairly inexpensive and not to difficult to learn how to use. I built my first site using Frontpage. Get a free trial download. http://www.runaware.com/microsoft/frontpage2003/

Dreamweaver is more expensive but they do have a 30 day trial download. You get easy to follow tutorials and and extensive manual with it. http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion drc/index.cfm?product=dreamweaver

It may be useful to learn some basic HTML as it will enable you to fine tune pages and add your own coding. For a free online course go to http://www.e-learningcenter.com/free_html_course.htm

Over several articles I will try and help you to put together a site that will be profitable and bring in targeted traffic.

Before you even begin to design your site you must ask yourself following questions.

1 What is purpose of your website? Is it to sell products, promote a service, provide information or build a downline.