If you are thinking about developing an Internet presence for your business or improving your presence, there are a number of things you need to consider. Some new online marketers start with a free site, rent a page or two at someone else’s site or get their own site or domain.
We started like many others, with a free five page web site. It allowed us to experiment. We got our feet wet with setting up several pages, researching what was out there and actually developing a marketing plan for the future. But we found that the free site was good for just that, getting our feet wet. Your space is limited, you don’t have all the tools available that you really need, nor the flexibility to expand as you see fit.
Our next step was to move up to our own domain package at a low to moderately priced hosting service with our own domain name, www.homebizlink.com. After a number of continuing problems and the lack of support to correct them, we moved to our present service who we believe to be one of the best on the Net.
DOMAINS -VS- DOMAIN NAMES
A domain package is the space or real estate you are leasing from a hosting service, of which there are a multitude on the Net. The packages come in many sizes and with or without many services you will need. You can get packages as little as 2 megs (about 50 pages), 30 megs (about 500 pages) and 60 megs (about 1000 pages), which is the size we currently have. There are many combinations available, these are only examples. The estimated number of pages is dependant on how much each page takes and what other uses you make of your space. Plus you want to look at the options that come along with your domain space, such as marketing tools, ease of uploading and downloading of your pages, and other services that will assist you in succeeding in your venture.
A domain name is a separate process, and a good hosting service will include "registration" of your chosen name for free. Don’t pay a hosting company or any other vendor $50 or $100 to register your domain name. Find a hosting service that does it for free.
First you want to make sure the name you want is available. The easiest way is to go to InterNic (or Network Solutions as it is known now) at: http://www.networksolutions/cgi-bin/whois/whois, and do a domain name search right on their home page. All you have to input is "yourname.com" (you don’t need to put in www.yourname.com) ".com" is the normal extension unless you are choosing ".org" for your organization or .edu if you are an educational institution. It will show you the results of your search in seconds. If it is not being used it will show "no record". If it is being used, you can review the contact information which will show you who is the registered owner. If it is registered, you will need to come up with another name. It could be just a slightly different wording or spelling.
InterNIC is the organization that centralizes the registration process of domain names on the Internet. You could actually register yourself if you know all the technical information. But I found that it is easier to let the hosting company do it for you. Two items show up on the registration, the Administrative Contact and the Technical Contact. You, as the owner of the domain name, should be the Administrative Contact. Your hosting service, or an individual at the hosting service will normally be the Technical Contact. If your hosting service shows up as both then they are the registered owner of the domain name. Make sure you are the Administrative Contact, the owner. If at some future date, you want to transfer your domain name to a different hosting service, you will have a problem if you are not shown as the Administrative Contact/owner.
InterNIC bills you directly for their annual registration fee. Currently your first bill will be $70.00 for two years, then $35.00 each year thereafter.
Choosing A Name
This is a critical area to consider. Your domain name is your unique business name online and is important to your business. Once you register it, it is yours and only you can use it. It is very similar to a trademark. With your own domain name your address will be www.yourcompany.com (or .org or .edu). If you were to purchase space at someone else’s domain, rather than getting your own, your address might look like this: www.theirname.com/directory/yourname/file.html or some other long combination. Which one looks more businesslike and professional to you? The name you select can project the unique theme of your business. It will assist you in building online recognition. Think about Amazon.com, Microsoft.com and others. They have become household names just like the traditional businesses such as Sears, Woolworth, etc.
Take some time to create your own domain name, it will be with you for a long time.
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