hances are you will need a programmer with expertise in  programs such as CGI (Common Gateway Interface) and/or Java to provide added features like tracking visitor information, and sending submission form information to a database. They MUST know HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) well.  Unless you are a "mom and pop" organization, it is not sufficient to have someone generate HTML using a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) web page editing program.  

If you've got a catalog that you wish to place on line, you'll want to generate the content from a database (see additional information in tip #2), so you'll need someone with experience in databases and generating dynamic content using a technology like active server pages.

The risk with using a "too-technology oriented person" without a strong base in building user friendly webs is that you may get an average or poor looking web that does tons of nifty things. Unfortunately, it won't add to your selling proposition unless your customer wants the feature.

The best option is to find a web development group that also takes responsibility for monitoring traffic at web sites (and the sales results generated by their designs), so that they know how to design website that will help you attract (and keep) visitors.   All the better if you can track your real success by generating sales on line.  If you go to all the trouble and money to create a web (a web of any significant size will probably cost at LEAST $40,000), then put money in your budget to have the activity at your web site monitored. More on web monitoring.

You should plan to spend at minimum a couple of hours surfing the web so that you can study your competitor's web sites.  Use the search engines to find products and services in your industry.  See the BioTactics reference page for how to search the web.  Peruse some of the best web sites on the internet, including Microsoft and Amazon.com.

Tip # 2.

You must have dynamic content at your
web site to continue to attract visitors:

One thing is for certain.  Your web is dead if you don't constantly attract visitors.  The fact is you MUST have constantly changing content (dynamic content) of high value to attract visitors. Using technology that supports the generation of dynamic web pages can give you a great deal of flexibility when you want to add new content to your web site.