This is because a true web designer often has a formal education and has spent years refining their skills to learn what works and what doesn’t. You see, there is much more to designing a website than appearance alone. You have to think about factors like usability, conversions and SEO, to name just a few.

If you can afford to hire a professional firm like Wildfire Marketing Group, by all means, do so, but if you need to design your own website because you’re on a budget, or you’re a budding web designer, be prepared for lots of learning and hard work. A comprehensive web design checklist will help to make sure you cover all the details and end up with an outstanding website!

Here are a few of the basics. The more intricate details will require some more research and tools.

1. Appearance

I hate to sound shallow, but looks matter. Over 83% of your potential clients will visit your website before choosing to do business with you, and their impression of your company will be formed in just a few seconds. If you can’t impress them quickly, you’ll probably lose them. If you’re not a “natural” artist, don’t spend a lot of time on this since your goal is to make money with your website. Instead, invest in a quality template and modify it to meet your needs.

2. Speed

People are busy, and when they visit your website, they expect it to open right up. So don’t load it up with tons of bloated graphics, JavaScript and poorly written code. And whatever you do, avoid music or those annoying intro videos. No one cares about them, and most people will either hit the mute button, or even worse, the back button. The faster your pages load, the better.

3. Usability

Flash can be great for some things, but never design your entire site, or your navigation with it. If someone doesn’t happen to have it installed (anyone on a smart phone, for example) they are unable to access your website. Plus, the search engines really can’t crawl or index your content within a flash site anyway. The bottom line is to make sure your site doesn’t rely on anything that your visitors may not have installed.

4. Call to action

Not having a call to action is like spending the entire night taking to a beautiful woman, but not asking for her phone number. You’ve put a lot of work into getting your website up and running, and even more work into driving traffic to it. Do you really want to just hope that your visitors are so excited that they take the time to figure out what you want them to do, and then do it? Make it clear and simple – if you want them to buy something, your headlines and buttons should clearly indicate that. The same goes for signing up for your newsletter or RSS feed or whatever action you want them to take.

So how would you know if the ecommerce web hosting provider is reliable enough for your business? There are a lot of deciding factors but in general, you need two things: security and functionality. Here are several tips for choosing a reliable ecommerce web hosting provider:

• A web hosting provider must be able to ensure safety of your data, protected against hacking and online identity theft. Any ecommerce website relies heavily on customers, who deserve a quick and safe way to shop online. It is only essential to give them the right form of security.
• A reliable ecommerce web hosting provider can guarantee 100% uptime. If your site is down even for just one hour, it can have an impact on your business, so it is very important that the web hosting provider can meet your uptime requirements.
• You need 24-hour support. In the world of electronic commerce, one of the priorities is to keep your site up and running at all times, no matter what happens. In case something occurs, it is good to know that your provider will work on it right away.
• While it’s true that you get what you pay for, breaking the bank for a web hosting service does not necessarily mean you’ll get the best one. Web hosting services vary in price and scope. Assess and compare several web hosting providers that are within your price range to make the selection process much easier.
• Make sure that your provider does regular file backups.
• Scalability is one thing that should be taken into consideration at the start of the contract. Be aware of the additional fees that may come as your business expands.
• Ask existing clients of the web hosting provider on your list. Many will be willing to give you their reasons for choosing a particular provider or some insights on the kind of hosting service they’re getting. They may even recommend web hosting providers that they have worked with in the past.

Finding a reliable ecommerce web hosting for your blog can be both daunting and time-consuming. However, you can make the selection process quicker and easier if you know what to look for. Keep these tips in mind and choose the web hosting service that suits your business needs.

First, edit (or create) your .htaccess file, using mod_rewrite to either remove the www from, or add it to your domain.

To remove the www from your domain:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} www.example\.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

To add the www to your domain:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} example\.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Next, simply upload your .htaccess file to the root directory of your web server and you should be all set. Be sure to give it a quick test and make sure everything works properly.

Fortunately, it’s as easy as a few mouse clicks. Simply click on the “Reading” link under the Settings tab at the bottom right of your menu, then select the radio button next to “A static page” and from the drop down menu, choose the page that you would like to appear as your home page. The last step is to save the changes and you’re all set.