The first step to establishing a web presence is to choose a dot com name. You can check the availability of names at www.register.com .  If the one you have chosen is taken, you will be given a list of similar dot com names that are available. 

More places to register dot com names: find your .com, .net, .org through Internic, Bulkregister, Dotster, or your .cc through ENIC.cc; find other country domains through uninett.no/navn/domreg.html; find URLs for sale at unclaimeddomains.com and DomainCollection; find words with netcraft.com.

 ICANN.org is the technical coordination body for the Internet (what to do about domain name disputes). With most of the above you will get an email account along with the dot com name. Set up and start using your email right away.  If you don’t want to spend much money, go to www.elevenbucks.com; this service does not include an email account. 

Is your site easy to use and navigate? Does it satisfy its intended purpose? Check out these usability sites: uie.com, useit.com. Here's a great place to check your site. Jim's Tools

Website templates:  desktoppublishing , for frontpage: frontpagetemplates , themepak , www.thememart.com , and frontpageworld 

Get a Privacy/Legal statement : http://store.yahoo.com/startupbiz/websitdevman.html 

Even if you have paid someone to construct your site, you can use these sites WebsiteGarage, netmechanic to see how it was done.   To test for viewing compatibility with various browsers, use cast.org/bobby, AnyBrowser.com.  To check your graphics efficiency, use gifwizard.com.   To keep track of your site's performance, use webpartner.com, keynote.com.  To critique your site, either ask a bunch of friends/family to take a look or pay a firm like testnow.com to do it for you and don't forget Jim's Tools

Let your audience quickly find what they need. Do this by providing valuable content, good navigation and easily accessible contact/feedback mechanisms. Add value to your site by using some of the "free" tools on the Internet . For example, if you're a U.S. public company, point to the Edgar database (e.g. Intel). If you want people to visit you, use Mapblast to give directions .

To put your site in the language of your user, try world.Altavista.com, Freetranslation.com, Globalsight.com, Ilanguage.com, Uniscape.com, US-Style.com

You need a place to park your website.

Free sites - with most free sites you have to advertise for the website that granted you the free site. This isn’t a beneficial arrangement if you plan on establishing a true presence on the web.

Inexpensive - www.ireg.com , www.xo.com , www.vero.com   are good starts for your first site.  Try not to pay more than $19.95 a month for hosting space. If they offer webmaster services than the price will be higher.

Approach appropriate sites in your industry and closely-aligned industries to link to your site. Create a link2us page to make it easy. Make sure you link back to the search engines and directories in which your site is listed. 

Check out LinkLeads ,marketinglinks , linkme , linktrader .

Joining or starting a Webring might work for your site. Getting links to sites in the top100 is a great goal!

You will want to establish as many links as possible to your website before submitting to the search engines (Link Popularity). The best sites for paid-for banner advertising are those with traffic. Try any of the search engine companies that offer targeted advertising. 

Sites to submit free-for-all pages: FFAnet.com, Linksrx.com, Linkomatic.com, MySubmitter.com, Submitad.com, URLomatic.a2zsol.com. Locations to download software for your own free-for-all page: FreeForAlls.com, Linksrx.com Linkomatic.com. Services that will host free-for-all pages for you: DGlinks.com, FFAnet.com,  Link-me-up.com.

For free banner exchange programs, check out: bcentral, linkexchange ,  bannerbarter , SmartClicks, cyberlinkexchange.usww.com, bannerswap.com, or  bxmegalist for a list of banner exchange networks. Bannerworkz can create your banner. See bannertips for tons of banner information.

Paid-for services include Doubleclick & Flycast, Clickz.com's Media Buying or Internet.com's Ad Resources for good starting points of on-line advertising resources.

Place fee-based classified ads: Fee_Sites, or for free: FREE_Sites. Here's a list of low-cost physical world classified ads.

Host classified ads at your site classifieds2000.com.

You usually will show up better if you have a reciprocal link and banner exchange program first. It will show link popularity which is a key to receiving a higher listing within the search engines. 

Make sure people can find your site in Yahoo and the top 7 search engines. Also submit to other locations. For low cost with great results check out: bcentral, submititplus , getsubmitted , imall, Beaucoup.com, Search.com  for other places to submit your site. Look at Yahoo's list and  Self promotion (also look at exploit.com). positiontech , NetworkSolutions ,ineedhits.com

Check your listings manually with positionagent or learn the tricks of checking the major engines from searchenginewatch. Learn everything you wanted to know about search engines from searchengines.

If your potential customer types in the key word or key phrase that describes your services, you want to make sure that your site is within the first two pages that show up in the search engine. 

Learn more about search engines through searchenginewatch and search engine showdown. Brainstorm key phrases with SearchTerms.com. Check out: what keywords are used the most on the net wordtracker , goto  Websiteresults, Yahoo's list. Programs available: web position gold works very well. Also check out some on-line services iprospect. Going the extra mile in the international market: http://www.CyberDifference.com :Multilingual search engine submission. 
http://www.nativetranslators.com :Translations by native translators. http://www.cybermultilingual.com :Multilingual Web information & resource center.
http://www.submitmarketing.com :Advanced search engine promotions through mirror site marketing
http://www.searchenginejungle.com :Search Engine Promotion Seminars.

Try to avoid offering two or three very similar products.  This can lead to a greater length of time spent making a decision instead of generating sales.  By  the time they reach your site, most on-line consumers have made enough decisions. Sell - don't compare.   Be proud to offer your loyalty to just one supplier.

Allow other sites to sell your products or distribute your value-added content. Lists containing affiliate programs: Adbility, revenue.linkexchange, refer-it, associateprograms.com, sitecash, associate-it, clicktrade, commission-junction, associatecash, clickquick, cashpile, linkshare, 2-tier.com, 4Yoursite, affiliatematch.

Running your own program: associateprograms, befree, clicktrade, linkshare.

If you can find the time, either manually or via on-line services, monitor and participate in user groups, mailing lists and discussion groups. Here are some services that can do this for you cyveillance.com, ewatch.com, Webpartner.com.  Lead an on-line forum or run an on-line community.  It is a great way to establish an affinity group and build credibility. Create a bulletin board in 10 minutes with beseen.com. Try anexa.com, eGroups.com, myfamily.com, clubs.yahoo.com for a host of on-line community services. Sign up for this e-zine to read about on-line communities: OnlineCommunityReport.com.

Determine On-line Communities for your participation:

Use these services to find: user groups deja.com, yahoogroups.com   mailing lists liszt.com or paml, and discussion groups forumone.com of interest. Also available for general searches of all areas is reference.com.

Package content that is valuable and distribute it on a periodic basis. You can build trust and spread the word.  This is also a good way to gather e-mail addresses for your marketing purposes.  Announce everywhere possible.  Don't miss announcing at new-lists, and using these sets of resources: Australian Electronic Journals, eZine AdSource, EzineZ, eZineZ helpful list, E-Zine-List, eZine Search, InfoJump, ListCity, ListsNet Directory, Low Bandwidth, The Etext Archive, The E-Zine Web Ring, PromoteFree, Poor Richard's eZine Registration Help, Zine-World. When you have over 10,000 subscribers, think about joining the Penn Media Network

Opt-in e-zine vendors: eGroups.com, eZinemail.com, Infoads.com, ListBot.com, MeMail.com, MessageMedia, Topica.com. 

Write and publish articles of value. Include your URL in your bio. Contact news people who write about your area of expertise. Here's two lists of contacts: PR Newswire Links, PressAccess.com.

Online Press Releases

Write and distribute press releases pointing back to your site. Check out Internet Newsbureau.com, PRweb.com, ProfNet.org/press.html, or Webcom.com/impulse/resource.html, Urlwire.com, Webwire.com.

If you can find the time, contests and giveaways are great ways to generate traffic. Just look at iWon.com. Here's a site to help you run your contest: Faircontest.com. Check out these sites to help you advertise: Contestguide.com, Contestworld.com, Huronline.com. Here are coupon companies that could help: Brightstreet.com, Coolsavings.com, Coupons.com, HotCoupons.com, RebatePlace.com, Valupage.com.

Run an Auction:

If you can find the time, partner with a software company to run an auction at your site: ebay.com, bid.com, moai.com, opensite.com, amazon.com. Check out Tucows for Auction Tools or auction portal sites Auctionrover.com, Auctionbeagle.com, Internetauctionlist.com.

Conduct Surveys
Check out Yahoo's or the University of North Carolina's list or try Addaform.com, SurveyBuilder.com, Zoomerang.com.