Welcome, today you will learn some tips for setting up your online business to run efficiently and allow you to serve your customers and clients with ease. You may be just starting your online presence or thinking about how you should set up your business and explore new ways to reach out to your particular audience.
When you step onto the internet space, web arena, you may not know where to start or what you should be doing first. When I started online many years ago I felt like a fish out of water 😉 I thought to myself, I need a domain name, a hosting account, an emailing system to communicate with my visitors, and need to know all the technical aspects of how to run everything online.
Where do I start?
Well, today I will share with you some of the things I’ve learned, the pitfalls, and what to stay away from and what you should be concentrating on moving forward.
What Is A Domain Name?
A domain name is like your physical home address.
It is a unique online address that is reserved for your business website only.
This way, whenever someone online navigates to your website address (domain name)
they will end up on your site! Now we will get more into websites in a few but the process starts with the domain address.
Domain names are registered with a web registrar that functions to organize the various domain names into an orderly way of sending traffic meant for a specific domain.
This is a very important part of the process and one that You should consider very carefully at the onset.
I have some really cool surprises for you in a few minutes that will allow you to get your very first domain name, free for the first year! So keep reading.
All Domain Names are Not Created Equal
When you are considering a domain name for your online presence a few things you need to consider:
Be aware of any copyright infringements that you may come upon when selecting a new domain name.
Many Brand name companies have a huge budget available to them to use to reserve various domain names with there company’s name or brand is within them so that they cannot be selected and used by their competitors.
If your business is incorporated then you may want to consider using your business name within your domain name.
You want to create a unique domain name specifically for your needs. Below I have a domain name search box for you to check different variations of names you may be considering and can determine if those names are in use, taken, or available for you to use.
The search box will tell you if it is taken or available for you to use.
If it is, hurry up and grab it!
Because just like you there are millions of people going through the online startup process and following a similar path I am describing to you as well. So play around with the domain search box and see if you can come up with some really good ones 🙂
What Hosting do I Need?
Now we will look at hosting space for you to house your domain name and get it up and running.
Hosting accounts or web hosts as they are referred to is a server that You will select and designate where you want to point your Domain name to, and the place that will be where all the action will happen.
What do I mean by that?
Your hosting account as I stated earlier is where you will send your domain name visitors to and will
Present your Website to them.
Think of a web host as a (hard drive space you have on your pc or computer that you navigate the various folders and files when you are looking for something specific to read or create or amend.
If you look at the little box at the top in the case of a Windows OS, is called an ‘address bar’
and that address bar lets you know specifically where those files you are working on is located.
A web host is thousands of times more powerful, and faster than your pc or laptop. They load up your website files (.html) or (.php) or (.asp) to be viewed by your visitors with specific information that you want them to read or know.
Warning: Do not skimp on selecting a web hosting space you will be using because it can be a weak link in the process if you select the wrong one.
When I started out, I was on a strict budget and thought I would get a cheap low-cost inexpensive web hosting account and that decision cost me dearly!
The phrase – ‘You get what You pay for’ applies here.
I had all sorts of problems, from the website loading Way Too Slow to the site being down because of server problems. Now picture you having your site all setup raring to go and you start sending visitors to it, and the damn thing is down! Not good.
Fortunately for you, you are here learning what not to do and that will keep you from having that problem.
I have researched the best web host for you and let you see the best to use and those you should not.
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One other thing regarding web hosting accounts, Use a hosting account that uses (C-panel) navigation because when it comes to the site building phase, whether you build it or get someone to do that for you, having a WordPress interface will be the path to choose.
I will get into the site building phase in a moment but take it from me, It will be the smartest thing you can ever do regarding your website project. Ever!
WordPress sites are the go-to platform used by many website owners because of its ease of use, everything is laid out for you so well that even a 10-year-old kid could be successful using it. WordPress sites also use plugins which are little programs coded by some very bright minds that allow you to set up site security, site loading speed, site usage, tracking site visitors, and so much more.
Matter of fact, this very site you are on today is a WordPress site :)
More on that in a moment…
Setting Up Your Site
So by now, you should have:
- Your Domain Name secured and registered
- Your Hosting Account secured
Now it is time to get your site up and running.
As I stated earlier WordPress sites are my go-to sites.
When I first started out online I used to build my own .html and PHP sites.
I had to learn how to code HTML and PHP sites.
It was way too time consuming because every time I had to make a change on the site ( having multiple pages) I had to make the change on each one. That went on until I learned about CSS (cascading style sheets) coding which WordPress uses, which is designed to work like this, every time you make a change on something significant on your site like the header image or something in the footer the (style.css) file would change all of them together. Nice!
But still, way too time-consuming.
WordPress takes care of all of that in seconds.
With WordPress platforms, you could literally have a site up and running within minutes or hours depending on your level of learning.
Remember speed is Key in today’s internet environment.
Communicating With Your Visitors
Now it’s time to talk about a key important aspect of your overall website project.
You should have:
- Your Domain Name in place
- Your Webhosting secured
- Your Website Up and Running
If you’ve come this far ‘Awesome’!
Now the communicating aspects, allows you, having put in all the hard work this far, and you start getting traffic to your site, your visitors may want to know more about what you are doing or the nature of your business or service.
They may want a publication from you to become more informed about the business that you provide, so that they can get access to it.
The communication link to making this happen is ‘Email’
Email is still one of the best methods of informing your visitors about what it is that you do in a neat, orderly way that will give you that professional, polished look!
There are many email services out there today that I will tell you about here, and even you hosting an email server on your hosting account. To address the latter first, I would say, make certain you have the technical skillsets to take on this approach because You Will Need It!
I am speaking from experience.
Email systems that are self-hosted, have a lot of moving parts and could take up a considerable amount of your time and hosting resources, should a problem arise or the software gets update enhancements, you will have to get it up and running asap. Believe me, if you are busy running the day-to-day aspects of your business and a failure happens, you will have to decide what technical resource you want to acquire to help you get it fixed, how much money you will have to spend, backup, and file recovery of those precious business assets which are your client’s information.
I have come across some very good email services that take care of all that behind the scenes stuff and free up your time for what is most important to you. Running your business and making money!
It is money well spent!
Here are a few of the services that are low-cost services, that you will appreciate and that I hope you take advantage of.
when you join the community where email automation began, you get access to all features and a team that’s 100% devoted to your success.
Try AWeber free for 30 days! – AWeber Communications
Easy email, landing pages, and marketing automation.
All in one mighty platform, working together to get you the results you need and deserve.
Both even allow you to test drive them for 30 Days free to see which one you like the best.
I have used both of them at some point and provide you with details here on the page.
One final note, there are hundreds of thousands of business owners and operators just like you that trust these companies with the lifeblood of their business – ‘Their Customer Assets’
That’s correct!
You see, having a list of customer contacts is the most precious business asset any company can have and cherish because it is how many businesses make their money.
When selecting the Email service, you want to, take your time, look at the features, and the training provided, and come to an informed decision.
What Resources Should I Have?
Having great resources at your disposal is a good thing to have!
Here’s an example:
Do You Have A Great Auto Mechanic That To rely on?
The old adage, if you get a hold of a great mechanic shop, you tend to use their services for years to come!
That concept applies to the internet world too.
Listen having a software engineer handy to take care of something you need to have them create for your website, a new piece of software that you need to be coded for you, a professional Logo created for you or maybe a video intro with your business brand design and logo in it to really make your video pop.
With the popularity of youtube, you may want to get a video engineer who knows how to put together some professional looking video presentations that are beautiful and meaningful. Maybe you need some publications created and put together for you as I mentioned earlier to give to your customer via Email.
I know website owners that even secure the services of some very good copywriters to write copy for their websites, email campaigns, publications that website owners send to their offline clients.
Optimum word here is Polished! Great Looking! Professionally Done.
I hope you are getting the message regarding having a team of people readily available and waiting for you to contact them with your business needs waiting to accommodate you.
There are literally hundreds of thousands if not millions of business owners that use services set up to help them thrive and grow each and every day.
Having a Leads, Data parser like Leadscrape is another jewel to have, because their data system is so specific to, countries, states, and cities around the globe. I use it religiously!
Another example is Google!
Google has an ads platform created and set up to send Specific visitors to a Specific area of Interest!
A Lot of them!
A website owner like yourself can literally have thousands of hungry visitors coming to your website in a matter of minutes or hours once you start the process for them.
Think about that for a minute.
Thousands!
Now you may be saying to yourself, I don’t have any idea how to get that process started.
I will show you here where you can get a team of experts assembled and ready, to make that happen for you.
No Problem at all.
This is what this site has been designed to do for you.
Please take advantage of the resources I have set up for you to make your online presence a great one.