A few thoughts to keep in mind:

• Layout and Design are very important: Have a consistent, organized, layout. Be careful of too many slow-loading graphics. Images are powerful communicators when they show items of interest to users.
• Clarity: Explain Who you are and what you do. Your homepage should offer users a clear starting point for the main tasks they'll undertake when visiting your site.
• Know your intended audience: The ultimate failure of a website is to fail to provide the information users are looking for.
• Original content: Create a Storyboard. One of the main things that makes a good site, is its unique qualities.
• Depth: The best Home Pages always give you a sense that there is something more beneath each layer.
• Creativity: Think outside of the box. Don't make your page look like every other page on the Web.
• Personality: Let your page be a window to your unique personality.
• Consistency: One of the most powerful usability principles: when things always behave the same, users don't have to worry about what will happen. Instead, they know what will happen based on earlier experience.

So what is the recipe for a good Web Site?

A good site must have all of the following attributes:

• It must be pleasing to the eye.
• It must be easy to navigate.
• It must be quick to load.
• It must be available 24/7 to the widest possible audience.
• It must ensure the world knows it's there.
• It must avoid becoming out of date.

What to avoid:

• Avoid any designs that look like advertisements.
  • Avoid excessive use of animated images. Animation avoidance makes users ignore areas with blinking or flashing text or other aggressive animations
  • Avoid pop-ups - users close pop-ups before they have even fully rendered.
  • Avoid large images that load slowly
    

We make it easy! We can help you determine your website needs and how to present them within your budget. We research your competitors to determine the website elements that your customers expect. We design a graphic logo, and develop your web pages. We administrate, and maintain your web site. We customize an approach to fit your individual needs, using direction from you before we ever start to build your site.

We work within your budget.

Blue Knight Designs can also create customized graphics for your existing Website. Headers, buttons, backgrounds, bars, photographic treatments and logo design are included in this category.

Where does the page live?

Before you can publish a Website, you need "web space" on the Internet. There are hosts, such as Geocities, Freewebsites.com, or Tripod, that will offer you "free" web space. This might be an option for you but these free Websites will require that you have their advertising on your pages. Some of that advertising is intrusive to your viewer, but as they say, nothing is really free. You might look to your own ISP (Internet Service Provider). Most if not all ISPs can provide you with a dial-up account, web space and Internet access, and domain hosting for a fee.

A Domain Name is the registered name of your website, and to see what names are available and what costs are involved, go here:
http://www.doteasy.com/
http://www.gkg.net/