Web Services for Web Marketers

If you are a Web Marketer, chances are that your primary concern is how to earn money with your product(s) and how to promote this to the correct audience. It is rare when a Web Marketer wants to get bogged down with the technology aspects of running a web site at the expense of revenues and customer service.

Unfortunately, we all must bear the pain of finding a hosting provider, setting up a web site, and monitoring it to determine how our latest pitch is effecting traffic to our sites. But what about the other aspects of your site:

• Domain Name Registration and Management
• Hosting Plans and Management Tools
• Search Engine Basics and definitions
• Third Party WebMaster Tools ?
• Setting up a BLOG on my site
• Email Marketing and Alternatives for my site

These topics will be discussed in the weeks to come. For our first topic, we will address the first item on the list relating to Domain Name management and registration.

Domain Name Registration and Management

Many of us already understand the importance of having a domain name that correctly reflects to the visitor some idea of what our web site is about and/or the products we are offering. Selecting the right name is important for placement on search engines as well. Some questions to ask yourself about your current service provider are:

• If my name is not available, do I get a list of suggested alternatives?
• What other TLD's (i.e. - .com, .net, .org, .info, etc.) are available?
• Do I get a discount for multiple year registration?
• Are there other promotions to reduce my cost?
• What do I do if the name is taken?

The Basics A domain name is your website name, the name of your business, your pages, and you online. A domain name is the address where people from around the country or around the world can access you site. Consider your domain name similar to that of your name. What do people call you, how do they address your mail to send you postal mail? A domain name is similar to the address and name in that respect. A domain name could be any combination of letters, and numbers, and then it will be used in combination of .com, .net, .biz and more so that readers can be directed to the correct domain name.

There are many domain name registration services out there. But finding an online company to register your domain name and provide value or savings with additional services to benefit your business is the key.

Some offer free hosting with a domain name registration, others give you a cheap domain name when you buy a hosting package. But for now, the immediate value is in assisting you when selecting your domain name. Once you type in your desired name, the service should tell you if the name is available and provide you with a good list of other (intelligent) choices that might fit your needs.

You also might want to protect the name from your competitors. you wouldn't want to set up a .COM name and find out your closest competitor registered a .NET and was generating more traffic for a similar product or service. So the service you use should tell you what other extensions (commonly called TLD's for Top Level Domains) are available so you can protect your brand or identity. The registration provider should easily allow you to add these to you order effortlessly.

Your next choice should be in the number of years you want to own the name. The service provider may also offer discounts for multiple years. But, what if you do not know how successful this is going to be? Perhaps you only want to register for 1 year (the minimum in most cases) and then renew if the offering is successful. So you should consider how easily can you upgrade or renew the domain name?

If your offering is successful, you will also want to protect your domain name from those online thieves that may want to steal your name as soon as the registration period expires. So a service provider that offers domain locking and protection is essential if this is one of your concerns.

Other services for registering your domain name include Private Registration. This is important if you wish to protect the fact that you personally are the owner of the domain name. Spammers and hackers are excellent and crawling WHOIS database providers and collecting personal data and email addresses. With a Private Registration, your personal data is protected from those with prying eyes.

Alternatively, a web marketer could use this WHOIS data to increase their presence and exposure of their product. A Business Registration option would allow you to enter information about your business and advertise your product, complete with a business card and images or links to your web site.

In summary, there are many other services available to us to enhance our web business when it comes to domain name registration. Domain registration is an important step to setting up your business and selecting a provider that offers you the services to add value to your business is essential.

Eric Buckley is the founder of scgdomains.com, an affordable, full service web hosting and domain name registration provider.