"Content" is the text of your site and, to a lesser extent, photos or art that illustrate that text. Your web designer cannot provide content, but he or she will be responsible for incorporating your content into the page design, and for establishing navigation (buttons or text links) that will allow visitors to your site to find the content they want quickly and easily.

Although business web sites have essentially replaced Yellow Pages ads, most sites contain much more than anything you'll find in a phone book. Basically, they become an interactive business brochure. If your business already has a brochure, its content might well be the basis for the content of your web site. If you do not have a brochure, the content of your web site will make a good basis for one.

As a minimum, your content should include the following:

• Statement: Who are you? And what you can offer your customers? (We modestly suggest you visit our home page for an example.)
• Products/Services pages: Let your customers see what you sell. This is easy if you sell products, a little trickier if you sell services. Photos can help.
• Contact Page: Make it easy for your customers to find you by giving them an address and phone number, and email address. This is also a good place to display your business hours and directions to your place of business.

On a "bare minimum" web site, all three of these components can be compressed to one page. This is the minimum amount of information you can usefully provide to the potential customers who are your web site visitors--the equivalent of a Yellow Pages entry.