IT TAKES PIONEER SPIRIT TO CREATE HOME PAGE : WEBPOINTERS.

Byline: Kitty Williams and Robin Lind

You've been Net surfing for some time, and you're tempted to set up a home page for your own business.

You've seen some great small-business Web sites out there.

Everywhere you hear about how important the Internet will be for business in the next century.

If you decide to do business on line, you must face the fact that you'll be a pioneer, even though there are millions of your co-pioneers out there.

You have many questions. After all, you're setting up a virtual storefront. You want people to be able to find you and, once they've found you, to decide it's worth returning.

Will your business actually benefit from a Web site? Will your customers be pleased to shop on line? Or will they be annoyed by the frustrations of a slow day on the ``World Wide Wait,'' as the Web was called in a recent New York Times article?

Then, you must think about the logistics. How much does a home page cost to make? How do you get it up onto the Web? Who maintains it?

As you've probably guessed, there are no simple answers. It's complicated. You can rent three megabytes of space on one national Internet service for $5 a month. Another in the same market charges $100. Another wants $300.

We know of one multinational corporation that paid $60,000 to have a Web site created last year. We know of another highly attractive and functional site that was done for well under $1,000.

If you have to bring in a typewriter repairman to fix your ``old reliable,'' you'll probably have to pay $75 an hour. Be prepared to spend at a similar rate for Web page design, although you can very likely find a cheaper rate in a college town with a good computer science program.

As you surf the Web, make notes about the home pages you like. If you are inclined to buy something from an on-line merchant, figure out why.

At the bottom of most home pages, you'll find a link inviting you to send feedback. On many pages, there is also a link to the page designer's home site. Go look at it. Then e-mail the designers and ask them about their services.

If you are a do-it-yourself type and you'd rather create your own Web site, an Internet content provider such as AOL might be the way to go. With membership in AOL, you are allowed a free two-megabyte home page for personal or business use.

Go to the keyword ``My Place'' to find out more.

Help and advice on designing, writing and publicizing your page on the Internet is all available from AOL, as well as through the Web Toolkit, Web Diner, Desktop & Web Publishing Forum and the Pro's Corner.

If you don't want to fool with AOL and you already have some design skills, you can use a graphic software package with Web authoring tools, such as Adobe PageMaker.

Fancy yourself as a closet propeller head and want to try writing raw code? Try the Homepage Creation Center where you can download free code editors and the latest versions of browsers.

Or you may want to visit the very core of the Web, maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium at MIT, where the scientific community agrees on new standards and their implementations.

Contact your Internet service provider to find out about getting your page on-line when you're done. Most of them will do it for a very reasonable price.

ADDRESS BOOK

AOL http://www.AOL.com

Adobe PageMaker http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/pagemaker/main.html

Homepage Creation Center http://the-inter.net/www/future21/html.html

W3C World Wide Web Consortium http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/TheProject .html

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