Domain Names
The first step toward e-commerce is selecting the name of your site. Your Web address (also called a URL or “domain name”), tells customers who you are and how to find you on the Internet. It is the core of your Internet identity-your online brand. And because no two parties can have the same Web address, your online identity is totally unique.
What’s In a Name?
Quite a lot, actually. Remember that not only does your domain name act as your address on the Web, but it also communicates and reinforces the name of your business to every Web site visitor. It can also be used as part of your e-mail address to reinforce your online identity.
Keep these tips in mind before you choose your domain name:
- Make it memorable. “Amazon.com” is more unique and less limiting than “booksonline.com.”
- Describe your business. Avoid confusion by simply and logically describing your business. “Flowers.com” obviously leads one to believe they can buy flowers on the site. If you are setting up an online presence for an established business, keep the name of your site the same as the name of your business
- Keep it short. The best domain names are those that customers can remember and type into their browsers after seeing or hearing them only once, so complicated strings of words like “onlinecdstore.com” don’t work as well as a simple phrase: “cdnow.com.”
How to Get and Manage Domain Names
Once you’ve decided on your Web identity, the next step is to determine if it is available and then register it with a domain name company or “registrar.” Registering is easy and inexpensive, so do it as soon as you’ve decided on your domain name to make sure you get the name you want.
Many businesses register a number of variations, just in case they want to use them later-or to avoid the risk of competitors obtaining similar names. You also may want to register common misspellings so that customers who type your address incorrectly still find their way to your site instead of receiving an error message. E-commerce businesses most often register a name with “com” as the domain name extension (the letters after the dot; also called a top-level domain, or TLD), but names with “.net” and “.org” (for “organization”) are also common. Other suffixes include “.edu” for schools and universities, “.biz” for small businesses, “.us” for United States based Web sites, and “.info” for resource Web sites. Aditionally, the “.ws” suffix is often used to mean “Web Site”.
JDR-net provides domain name registration services for as little as $9.95 per domain. Search for an available name and register it with JDR-net at
JDR-net.net. Just type in the Web address you’ve chosen, select the extension you want and click “GO.” In seconds you’ll know if the name is available.
Written by e-Reporter on March 27th, 2006 with no comments.
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- Prevention is better than cure: With an automobile, (where preventive maintenance is preferable to—and less expensive than—post-incident repairs) it is always better to keep the engine’s oil changed on a regular schedule than it is to have to rebuild the motor. The same is true with your health. Exercise and nutrition may prevent more serious disease. When planning a web site, planning ahead will often prevent serious problems later on. There are few things more annoying than changing plans in the middle of a process. Of course you will always be exposed to mischances, but by planning ahead you will avoid potential problems that would require major modifications along the way.
- Faster development: People needing a web site usually fall into two categories: those who have a clear idea of what they want, and those who want “just to be on the Internet”. At first it would seem that the second type might be more permissive, making the development smoother. But on the contrary, this will often result in objections, additions, and modifications—slowing down the process. If you have not a clear idea at first, you will only know exactly what you want when you see it. And trial-and-error isn’t a wise method for developing anything.
- Better performance: By aiming to an objective through all the steps of the web development process, the final result will be more consistent with your original idea. The efficiency of your web site to achieve your main goals will rely mainly on your initial planning.
Written by e-Reporter on March 27th, 2006 with no comments.
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Blogs are constantly creating new business opportunities. While some time ago blogs were almost an exclusive territory for non-professional bloggers sharing their thoughts, experiences and ideas, currently small and large business have a wide presence in the blogging world. There are a number of potential benefits of adding a blog as part of your marketing strategy or as a business model:
- Blogs spread information: Blogs allow you to publish information instantly and frequently, and the conversational nature of blogs will help you spread that published information. Not only your visitors will read it, but also other blogs will reference your content through reviews, news, comments… and will link to your site, allowing other Internet users to access that given information. In addition, your blog can capture the attention of the media, which frequently uses the blogs for source material.
- Blogs give you feedback: Most blogs allow readers to comment on your posts or link to them (and notify your site) on their own blogs. This is an automated mechanism that provides you instant feedback on any issue. You can know what your readers think of you (or your product/service/company) almost in real time.
- Blogs build you a reputation: Always you provide useful and honest content, a business blog can help position you as an expert in your niche. Blogs can be considered as a platform for expressing your knowledge, expertise and experience, so they are a powerful tool for building you a solid reputation.
- Blogs are marketing tools: Blogs are a useful and low-cost marketing tool as they improve the awareness of your product/service/company and strengthen the loyalty of your customers (readers). The word-of-mouth will provide you a way into audiences that couldn’t be reached efficiently in any other way.
- Blogs are an easy content management system: The ease of use of blogs as a content management system (CMS) will allow you to forget the programming and the design of your web site and will also help you reduce costs. You can create your blog using free blog hosting services like Blogger or run free software like Wordpress on your own web hosting (preferable for business blogs). In both cases you can adapt the appearance of your blog through free professional-looking templates (themes). This makes creating and updating web sites faster, easier and cheaper then ever.
- Blogs are search engine traffic generators: Lastly, search engines have been driving their efforts to reward rich-content sites, due to the great amount of poor-content sites built with the only purpose of generating revenue through advertising. As blogs are generally based on valuable and original content, they are especially appealing to search engines.The linking structure inherent in blogs is another determinant in the equation. As other blogs reference your web site articles, they will link to them. Moreover, comments and trackbacks frequently include a link back to the blogger’s site. Because incoming links are one of the most important ranking factors in major search engines, it’s obvious that blogs are great platforms to generate search engine traffic.
Written by e-Reporter on March 24th, 2006 with no comments.
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Though there are different approaches to weblogs, they can be defined as web sites where users post entries (news, articles…), updated frequently and normally reflecting the thoughts of the blog’s creator. Those entries (posts) are typically listed in reverse chronological order (the most recent entry on the top).
Most blogs allow visitors to leave their own comments on the diverse entries or even references from other blogs (trackbacks). This communication between different blogs and bloggers is one of the main factors involved in the fast growth of the so-called “blogosphere” (the whole community of blogs) and its current influence.
Written by e-Reporter on March 24th, 2006 with no comments.
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