We highly recommend that serious up-front planning take place before getting started.  Here are a few questions to ask:

• What do we hope to accomplish by having a web site?

• Who do we hope to reach?

• How does a web site fit into our existing marketing plan?

• What content on our site will help us reach our goals?

Once you have developed a good plan for constructing a site, here are a few methods you might use to gather materials to submit to us:

Cut and Paste - Look at your competitor's web sites.  Note the things you like and the things that you might do differently.  Print pages, cut, paste and draw -  to sketch an outline of how you would like your web site to look.

Extract from Existing Product Literature - Look at all of the printed brochures, flyers, form letters, etc. you may have.  Most likely there will be some key text and pictures that would be good to use.

If you plan to construct the site yourself, here are few design tips:

• Make the site as intuitive and easy to navigate as possible.

• Minimize the number of links on the Home Page (6-8 is a good).

• Keep the load time down to about 30 seconds per page at 28.8 Kbps

• Don't use graphics on a page unless they help convey your message our create a desired effect.

• Only use animation, movies and sound if they are important to conveying your message and don't drag down the site's performance.

These things may seem obvious, but take a look at the web sites of some of the Fortune 500 companies and you'll be surprised how many slow-loading, hard-to-navigate sites you'll find.