You also need to register a domain name and subscribe to a web-hosting service.

You can register a domain name online at any one of thousands of domain-name registration sites. A domain name costs about $30 to $35 per year. When you register your name, you usually buy it in one- or two-year increments. At the end of that time, you must reregister it if you want to keep it.

There are also thousands of web-hosting services available. They offer a broad range of services and can cost anywhere from a few dollars a month to hundreds of dollars a month. You can get web hosting for a straightforward, non-ecommerce site for about $8 a month. You can register online for this service as well.

Yes. SumSites will give you input on domain and hosting companies that offer the services and functionality that best suit the type of site you want to build. There is no additional charge for this. You are free, however, to choose any ones you want.

No. In order to register, you’ll need to provide your company’s credit card information, and as a company policy, SumSites doesn’t want to be responsible for such sensitive information. If you need help, though, we can walk you through the sign-up process.

We’ll start work on your site as soon as we receive the user ID, password, and FTP address for your site. Your hosting service will email you this information as soon as you register with them. Simply forward that email to us at Msum865048@aol.com, and we’ll get to work.

We like to allow four weeks for development time, but this schedule depends on the complexity of the site and how soon we get any content you may need to provide, such as photos.

Email the material as file attachments to Margie Summers at Msum865048@aol.com. Please send photos in .jpg format, and text as plain text files or MSWord files. You can also simply type the text into an email.

When we build your site, we’ll include a list of metatag keywords in the code so that search engines can find it. It’s a good idea for you to create this list of keywords related to your type of business and the services you provide and send it to us so that we can code it into your site.

As part of our service and at no additional charge, SumSites will submit your site to search engines. Some of them charge a fee; some do not. We only submit to the free ones, because your billing information is required, and we prefer not to be responsible for this sensitive information.

Also, be sure to include your web address in any other advertising you may do; e.g., print ads, your company newsletter, your letterhead, etc.

If you like, SumSites can maintain your website for as long as you own it. You can choose a maintenance contract for a flat monthly fee. Or, if you prefer, you can simply pay as you go for an hourly rate. If you anticipate needing a lot of on-going changes, then the maintenance contract is the more cost-effective way to go. If you think you’ll rarely need changes or only small ones, then the per-hour fee is more cost-effective.

Yes. If you prefer to have someone else take over maintenance once the site is built, you’re free to do so.

Yes. You’ll always have access to the files for your website via the user ID, password, and FTP address provided by your hosting service. However, unless you are proficient in HTML and other scripting languages the site may use, we don’t recommend it. One typographical error in the code can cause an entire page to display incorrectly and may take hours of troubleshooting to find and correct.