– Part 2 –
Next, you will need a domain name. Most people think their company name is the best way to go for a domain name, however, a generic domain name with keywords that are associated to your product or service will serve you much better. You can also register your company name as a domain name and point it to your website, but it is not necessary.

The generic domain name can help you with search engine traffic and can be more memorable. It is only one factor of many that will help you with search engine optimization, but it is a step you should take when getting started. Example: cars.com is a better domain name than ford.com, even though ford spent millions to advertise and brand their name. Even cheapusedcars.com is better because people will search for that.

You need to find a good domain name registrar, not a cheap domain name registrar. Cheap means cheap in the area of domain names. Your domain name is important. Spending $25 per year to registrar that provide more services and quality VS spending $10 or less at a cheap registrar is what we are talking about here. If that extra $15 per year is going to make or break your home business, then maybe you should not start one.

Next, you will need a web hosting service. Again, cheaper is not better. There are good hosting services for $100 per year or even a little less. Anyone that is offering you hosting for less than that should raise a red flag. Choose and pay for your hosting for at least a year, just like you registered your domain name for. If you are going with a monthly plan, you probably aren’t fully committed to your new home business.

Now, you have your domain name and the hosting for your new website, but where is the website and how do I get that? You have several options. You can learn html and build your own. You can use a WYSIWYG editor like FrontPage to build your own website. You can hire someone to build your website for you.

First, we will talk about learning html to build your own website for your home business. There is a learning curve here. This is the best option of the three I mentioned above, but it takes time to learn. You will probably not be up and running in just a few days with this option. In the long run, it will save you a lot of money to learn html and build your own websites. The more websites you have in your portfolio, the more likely you will have at least one that is a big winner. Writing your own code means you can build a new website as often as you want.

Next, building your own home business website with a WYSIWYG editor. (What You See Is What You Get). These editors are similar to making a document. Everything is visual and you do not need to know html. The learning curve for these editors is much less than that of learning to actually code your own website.

However, these websites do have limitations. Since the code for the website is auto-generated, it tends to have mistakes. In addition to that, you have to make sure your hosting has the proper extensions to host your website. FrontPage Extensions is the example if you use the FrontPage WSYIWYG.

This option will get you up and running faster, but you need to hire someone at some point to fix the code for you so the page will always load correctly and optimally. How your website is viewed in different browsers, how fast your website loads, and how your website looks are all design factors that make a difference to your customers, so weigh each option carefully.

Continue to Home Web Business Made Easy – Part 3

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Related posts:

1. Home Web Business Made Easy – Part 3
2. Home Web Business Made Easy – Part 1
3. Business / Sales
4. Web Development
5. Web Design Tips

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Posted in Work at Home by Alley 1 Comment