Our brief was for a beautiful, informative and interactive web site, with full administration script. The site needed to be fully database driven and flexible enough to update to full secure e-commerce at some time in the future.  
 
Fortunately, our son is a leading web developer running his own company The Page Designer which specialises in high end database driven websites. The site is hosted by his web hosting company Page Hosting on Linux.  
 
Because commissioning a website can be a minefield, I have put together a list of tips that might be useful.  

• The development process is not fast, simple or cheap. To produce a bespoke website such as ours has taken two months of intensive programming and lots of one to one discussions as to exactly how the site should look and work.  
   
  
• Ensure you have well researched and well produced material for the site and that you keep it updated so that visitors keep returning to your site. Make sure they enjoy your site. Remember, the next visitor could be your next customer.  
   
  
• Focus. Focus on the future of the web, focus on the direction of your business and focus on what will interest your customers and visitors to your site.  
   
  
• Keep it fast. Not too many whizzy things as they may slow the site. Slow sites just encourage people to move on to another site.  
   
  
• Market your site heavily. Don't rely on search engines. The responsibility is on you to get your name in front of those that matter.  
   
  
• Research web developers before you buy. Remember that there are lots of people jumping on the bandwagon and it is difficult to tell the great from the not so good.  
   
  
• Ensure you put aside enough time to keep your site regularly updated and that you will enjoy working on your site.

Our thanks go to Graham and Greg for our beautiful website