Register your site's name. Early on, register your “domain name” (the name of your site) with the Internet Domain Name System (DNS). Go to www.internic.net (InterNIC’s website) to do this; it costs less than $100 and gives you exclusive use of the name.

Don’t forget to get listed with search engines and databases before you launch your site. You will need to send your uniform resource locator (URL, or “address”) and a brief (no more than two sentences) overview of your site. A good resource on how to do this is WebStep Top 100 at www.mmgco.com/top100.html.

Choose an organization to “host” your site. Chances are, you’ll need an organization to maintain your website. You can find a list at The List www.thelist.com and ISPCheck.com www.ispcheck.com. Be sure to ask many questions (e.g., How often is the site down?) before making your decision.

Design the site. Choose someone experienced with website design. He or she can guide you through considerations unique to the web. Although graphics are nice, they take time to download. For Nursing Spectrum- Career Fitness Online www.nursingspectrum.com, we chose to use the colors of our logo to make the site easy to navigate, but user-friendly as well. It’s best to use the KISS principle when designing a site – Keep it Simple, Stupid.

Joseph Filakovsky, MSN, APRN, CS, editor of Pulse, the website for the Council on Cardiovascular Nursing, a council of the American Heart Association (AHA) talks about the importance of “image” in developing a website: “The challenge is developing an image for the page – not something flashy but professional, not something boring and sedate but something vibrant and alive – our council is vibrant and alive, why shouldn’t its [web] page be as well?”

Make a schematic of the site. A schematic, which includes labels on the buttons and an outline of how the site flows, helps everyone visualize what the site will look like and to make comments. It also helps you avoid the “lost in cyberspace” phenomenon, by alerting you to when you have too many levels. A good rule of thumb: Never make the user click more than four times to get to the information he or she is seeking.

Attach a detailed outline of the content you plan to offer on your site. It’s important to update content often. We have quick facts that are updated daily, and guest lectures that are updated weekly. Job opportunities are updated every two weeks; CE programs biweekly.

When planning content, consider your resources for providing that content. If you have limited resources and a limited budget, keep your site basic so that you can update it without pain.

Plan for interaction. People enjoy interacting with each other, even over an electronic connection. For example, we have a “chat” room where RNs can talk with one another in real time (similar to a text-based conference call). What might your users want to talk about? At the minimum, be sure that users can send you e-mail.