Having a website is likely not crucial to your business, but if you have a small business you are expected to have one, just like you are expected to have a logo, and expected to have a business card. Web sites don't have to be expensive, or complex, but a successful small business website needs some time and care put into it so it doesn't make your professional company look amateur. Read on for a list of what you need to get yourself in the ether.

Site Name
   Unfortunately one of the largest problems on the internet is finding a good website name, and it's not because there are a lot of businesses using the names you like, it's mainly because people register names hoping to pin anyone who wants them for some cash. Try to come up with something fairly easy to remember, and pertinent to your business. Don't fret if you don't find the perfect name, you can always change it later, and forward people to your new address.

Hosting
   The first thing you need to do is find hardware and bandwidth for your website. If you used godaddy.com as your registrar then they offer free hosting with an ugly banner at the top to get you started. If you are satisfied with their service then you can upgrade for a fee to get rid of the banner. I like this because it's a great way to play around with a website until you get it right and have to pay for it.

Design
   Designing a world class website is a pain, and is best done by people that make brain surgeon money. However a professional, and simple layout can be had by choosing a content management system (cms) such as WordPress, or Drupal, and serving up your website through it. These systems save the lay person from being forced to learn CSS, HTML, PHP, etc, just to get simple website built. Many providers such as Godaddy allow you to install any CMS system you want with just a few clicks. It might take a little reading up, or paying someone a couple hundred dollars to save you the effort, but before long you will be humming right along.

Content
   Some say that on the web content is king, but often a website is a glorified business card for a small business. Content may come and go, but it's better to have a lack of content and no broken links. Make sure the contact information is somewhere easily accessible at the top, your services listed (prices optional), and a little bit about your business.

Layout
   White space is not evil. Some white space makes a web page much more readable, and less busy. A cluttered website often confuses customers, and creates an environment of stress. Since I've plugged Godaddy a couple times I'll say that they have one of the worst websites due to over cluttering I've ever seen. I've met two people in the last month asking if I know a better provider that makes it easier to find things on. They aren't dissatisfied with the service other than the fact they can't find anything on the Godaddy website. Godaddy spends massive amounts of money to market to non web savvy people only to lose most of that money due to a front page that looks like someone puked on a jenga puzzle after eating a pound of skittles.

Advertising
Don't pay anyone to increase your websites rank. Those guys are almost all scam artists, and if they aren't scam artists then they will more likely get your website removed from search engines for trying to cheat the system. I like using Google ad words, and some of the other ad word services that you can set your budget limit per click and per day so you won't get any surprises. Make sure to submit your website to Google, yahoo, and msn so they know to search your website. This will help your site come up when someone is looking for you. Google is a modern day yellow pages.

Feedback
   Find someone who is a blogging junkie, and someone who is good at English. have them look over your website for grammatical mistakes (no I don't have anyone look over tech tips for grammar, you mean you could tell?), and layout ugliness. I used Dave Snyder from www.greeneggpage.com to give me some great advice on my layout.

Outsourcing
   If you can't create something that doesn't look like what's left over after a fish is cleaned, then you should get someone to make your website for you. Make sure that whoever does it uses a popular content management system, and that you have all of the user names and passwords to the site, and they are locked out after they are 100% complete. Too often good websites fall into disrepair because the shmoe you hired to create it drops off the face of the planet, or worse uses their control to extort you.