In order to set up a successful (and profitable) website, you must first define what success and profitable mean. Everything in your web site design should revolve around these initial ideas of success and profit. You should have an experienced web designer to consult with during this process, to get an understanding of the different options available, and the costs of those options, to achieve your proposed success and profit goals.

After you have defined your success and profit goals for your website, it is time to choose the specific technologies you will be using to create your web site. There are basically 2 choices - Microsoft technologies (ASP, .NET, MS-SQL, etc) and Open Source technologies (Perl, PHP, MySQL). The 2 technologies are really very similar in what they can do. Either one can create very powerful and dynamic web pages, database driven sites, and the like. However, generally speaking the Microsoft technology solutions cost more to build and host then the Open Source, but there is a big company there to help (for a fee) if any problems arise. Because of this, generally small to medium companies are better off going with Open Source technologies (because of the lower costs), and large companies go with Microsoft technologies (because it makes them feel more secure). One VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: the two classes of technologies are NOT interchangable. Once you pick one, if you decide later to change, your only real choice is to thow out what you have and start from scratch (or nearly so).

After you have set goals and chosen a technology, then website development starts. This is the fun part, as the web site comes together, and you can see the progress that is happening. Unless your site is a very simple 5- to 10-page site, the person putting it together should be asking questions about your business at this point. If questions are not being asked, you should start asking questions to make sure that everything is being done in a way that works for your business.

If your site is very complex, with animation and data-base driven pages, then you may have several people or groups of people working on your website. You may have a graphics designer making all the "look and feel" stuff; a database designer, putting the database together, and getting the data to flow in all the right directions at all the right times; an HTML person to get all the page elements in the right places and working with all the different browsers you want to support; and you should have one person who is the "architect", who is responsible for the overall design and the final Quailty Assurance. If something is not right, it is their job to figure out who is responsible and get them to fix it in a timely manner.