If you are a small business owner, then it goes without saying that you must have a business website. These days, a lot of web savvy customers tend to consult a business' website before making a purchase decision, for directions, for store hours, or to even send an email with some query. If you don't have a website, you are definitely missing out on a lot of customers - not the best thing to do in the current economy.

When you set out on making your business website, you have to be very careful who you trust. I'm pretty sure you get a lot of emails everyday (which, hopefully, land in your spam box) about companies that will make you a website for thousands of dollars, or submit your site to search engines. These offers might sound good, but they are not. Most of these bogus companies will do work that is hardly worth a few hundred dollars, and things like search engine submissions is nothing but a scam.

Thus, when you start making your website, make sure that you yourself are the one to get in touch with any web designer or search engine optimization specialist.

Moving on, the first thing you need to use when making your own website is your own domain name. It will cost you around $8-10/year for a.com domain name if you make a fresh registration. If you want to buy a previously registered domain name, expect the price to be much higher. Whenever possible, get a domain name that either reflects your brand (SamAutoWorks.com, for instance), or your chosen industry (eg: AutoMechanic.com). Don't pick any abbreviations, hyphens, or numbers in your domain name. Pick a registrar like GoDaddy for your domain.

Next, pick a web host. This is the service that will house your website. I assume that you want to host just one website. In such a case, you can easily get hosting from a top host like HostGator or DreamHost for $5/month. You can bring down the price even more by pre-paying for 6 to 24 months.

After you have the host, you will have to get down to making your website. This is the tricky part. There are a number of options at your disposal here, depending on your skill level with computers. You could use a HTML template, have a WordPress business blog style template, or even design one yourself using a software like Dreamweaver. Or you could hire a web designer to do it all for you. Depending on the complexity of your site (most small business websites are quite small), it will cost you between a few hundred to a few thousand dollars to hire a professional designer. Discussing how to make your own website, unfortunately, is beyond the scope of this article.

Your website will let your potential customers peep into your business before they actually make a transaction. Make sure that it has plenty of information, along with a strong visual appeal to convey the message of trust. A badly created, ugly website will actually harm your commercial interests than no website.

John is a blogger who has been writing online for 3+ years. His latest blog is about black clutch bag. Read it here: Black Clutch Bag - http://www.blackclutchbag.com/