Many entrepreneurs spend countless hours building and tweaking their product or service. This inventive process is the heart and soul of many Internet businesses. An entrepreneur may be tempted to feel that their work is done when they place their product or service on the market. Unfortunately, this is no time to sit back and watch the sales roll in because they won't, unless you create an effective Internet marketing plan.

Internet marketing begins with a website or host of websites for your Internet business. Many business owners are experts in their field and/or have created a unique, innovative product, but they may not know how to create a website. Tread carefully as you create your Internet website so that you don't spend time or money on ineffective website hosting, design, and marketing methods.

Following are four basic tasks you need to accomplish to create an Internet website for your business. This article provides direct recommendations of specific businesses as these businesses have a proven track record.

Basic Task #1: Purchase a domain name.

What is a domain name? A domain name is the name of your location on the Internet. A great resource for domain names is www.godaddy.com < http://www.godaddy.com >. (The domain name of this website is godaddy.com.) At www.godaddy.com < http://www.godaddy.com > you can find out if the domain name you desire is already in use. If it is not then you can purchase it for around $10.

Basic Task #2: Find a hosting account.

A hosting account will bring your website onto the Internet. It is imperative that you find a hosting account that provides the services you need. A great resource for hosting accounts is Frontier Power Hosting at < http://www.frontierpowerhosting.com/ >.

What options should you look for in a hosting account? Make sure that your hosting account gives you your OWN IP address, extensive space on their server, and allows you to add more domains for free. You want your own IP address because this will improve your website rank in the search engine rankings. Shoot for 500MB of space so you will have plenty of room on the server.

Don't be tempted to opt for a cheap hosting account as you will encounter several problems. One problem is that cheap hosting services tend to not have adequate customer support. Another issue deals with Internet spam. Let's say that you are with Hosting Company XYZ which is also used by an individual that is sending spam. Email companies such as Yahoo, Earthlink, etc. may find out that this individual is spamming and cut off any services from Hosting Company XYZ. This cut off stops your emails as well even though you didn't do anything wrong.

Basic Task #3: Set up an Autoresponder.

What is an Autoresponder? There are two kinds of Autoresponders. One type is the Out of Office message you can set up in your Outlook account. This will automatically send an email message to anyone that emails you when you have this function turned on.

The other type of Autoresponder message is called the smart Autoresponder. A smart Autoresponder account should be installed on your hosting account. Check out < http://www.ecom24.com/ > for more information. This type of Autoresponder allows you to capture personal information such as first name, last name, email, IP address, and a time stamp of when the customer sent the email. Plus, this service can create tags that tell you who clicked on the different links in your email message.

Basic Task #4: Create a Power Squeeze page.

The power squeeze page is the page that customers will land on when they click on links in your email message. The purpose of this page is to capture personal customer information so you can build a rapport with customers.

Completing these four tasks is essential. Take your time, make an investment, and utilize the referrals of the businesses mentioned in this article.