Set Up Your Basic Online Foundation In this lesson, we're going to learn how to decide on a domain name for your web site, and about choosing a web hosting company. Last, we'll talk about the different types of payment processor options available to you. Ready to roll up the shirt sleeves and dig in again? Actually, this lesson should be a breeze compared to the last two - so don't get anxious. We're going to talk about how to decide on a domain name for your web site. That's roughly equivalent to the sign over your store in the brick & mortar world. And I'll talk to you about choosing a web hosting company and how you make those choices. Last, I'll talk about the different types of payment processor options available and give you some good recommendations for setting those up. As before, be sure to save this lesson somewhere that you can find it later. Of the topics today, the first will probably require the most research and thought. It is about as important as coming up with a new company name, or naming a new product. That's because your domain name will become your "brand". People you do business with online, will likely remember your domain name before they remember your name. Anyway, picking a domain name is every bit as personal as choosing a company name, and sometimes ego and emotion can get in the way, but never let it be said that I didn't cover the more logical considerations you should take into account when making this decision. For an example, let me tell you about a company named RONCO. I'm not making this up, by the way, RONCO is a real company. Without a little thought, you probably won't know who this company is, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that RONCO is an acronym for "Ron's Company". The domain name for Ron's Company is ronco.com, but what does it tell you about the company's product line or its mission? Ron used all the wrong reasons when deciding on his company name, and then compounded the error when he picked his domain name. Today Ron's company invents, manufactures and markets almost every gadget imaginable for the kitchen (I think Ron has finally found a niche). Have you figured out who Ron is yet? Remember, "It slices, it dices"? Or, how about the Popeil Pocket Fisherman? (He still sells that, by the way). The point is that when Ron Popeil started his company, he didn't know what he wanted to do with it - or if he did.... 1. It was very broad - so there was just nothing to guide him - nothing to base the name on, or 2. His ego came into play Don't be like Ron. You've picked your niche. Let's come up with a name that your visitors can identify with. Selecting Your Domain Name I can't pick your domain name for you, so I want to teach you a process that you can duplicate. Hopefully you will be able to follow my thought process through the example (fly fishing again), and apply the same techniques to your own "topic". The first thing you want to do is find (Oh noooo, research again?) an available domain name (one that hasn't already been registered by someone else) that relates to your niche. The tool for researching domain availability is called a "whois" service (as in whois:yahoo.com, whois:google.com). Most of the registrar companies and search engines offer whois services to find out if a specific domain name is taken, but Smart Whois takes it a step further. Go to ||{1}|| At Smart Whois, you have the option to do a standard domain name search, but you can also enter a set of keywords and it will search the registries to find registered domains containing those words, and list available domains containing those words. I could easily come up with 20 or more potential domain names that contain the words "fly fishing", but I would have to search each one individually to see if they were already registered (and more than likely, all would be). Instead, I will search based on keywords and let Smart Whois do all that work. Here's the process: 1. First, I enter the keywords "fly fishing". I am partial to the .com domain names, so in the "Autosearch Options" - I uncheck all the other possible extensions. Hyphenated domain names can be a plus, so we'll leave that option checked. I also uncheck all of the country specific extensions so that my search doesn't include those domains. 2. I then click on "Go", and within a couple of seconds I find that there are no available domains containing just those 2 words. 3. Maybe I'll compromise, and consider a .net or a .biz domain. I try the same search, but this time I look for .com, .net, and .biz domains. This time I get some available domains reported, but none of them are acceptable ('fishing fly' just isn't the same thing as 'fly fishing'). 4. At this point I have to go back to my topic list. If you didn't really make a list, you'll have to go back through the Term Suggestion exercise in Lesson 1, so that you can find a list of terms that is closely related to your chosen topic. Repeat the above as many times as necessary to find a domain name that is readily identifiable with your product or niche market. Note - It is debatable, at any given point in time, whether the domain name plays even a small part in search engine rankings. If the search engines do consider the domain name as a part of determining keyword relevance, it is important to understand that a hyphenated domain name allows the search engine to differentiate between words - where a name consisting of a single string of concatenated words would be considered as a single word (and individual keywords would not be recognized). Registering Your Domain Name Registering a domain name is necessary for others to find your web site. You see, the communication between machines on the web is really done by passing messages from one machine address to another. These are Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and each address consists of 4 sets of 3 numeric digits. This is fine for machines, but a terrible interface for your human visitors, so each IP address can be cross-referenced with a name for use by your visitors - your domain name. Once you have picked your domain name, you must register it, but if you haven't settled on a place to host your web site yet, there is no IP address to cross-reference it with. So... Domain registration becomes a 2-step process. First, register your name with a domain registrar, and after you have arranged for a web server to host your site (we're getting to that next), have the registrar record the Domain Name Servers of your web host. Two of the best, least expensive options for registering a domain name are: Prowebspace.com - $7.95 per year Godaddy.com - $8.95 per year Picking a Web Host A web server is little more than a standard PC with a couple of Network Interface Cards. But it requires running a Server operating system, web server and domain server software, a high speed, always-on connection to the internet, backup power, enhanced security in the form of a firewall, etc. Then there's the need for a separate, secure server if you're going to process customer payments through your own merchant account... With all this, it should be clear that setting up the environment, and administration of the server makes it a good idea to leave this function to a full-time web hosting service. Probably the 2 most popular web hosting services for the small business that wants to do ecommerce from their web site are: Host4Profit.com ThirdSphereHosting.com Both cost $24.95 per month, and both have an affiliate program paying out $10 per month for every customer you refer to their services. A third, and highly recommended solution is Site Build It! that includes not only hosting, but a very complete set of tools to design, build, and market your web site. Site Build It! is comparably priced, but requires payment on an annual basis. Site Build It! also has an affiliate program, so with any of these options, your hosting service could wind up paying you rather than the other way around. As a convenience option, all three of these also provide domain name registration, but you may want to opt for one of the less expensive domain registration services mentioned earlier. Set Up Payment Processing If you are only referring your visitors to other people's products as an affiliate marketer, the merchant will make all of the arrangements for collecting payment from the customers, and you can forego that. However, if you wish to sell your own products, you will need to make arrangements to collect payment from your customers, and ideally you will be able to accept payment by credit card. Payment processing requires: · payment gateway - a service that has obtained approval to process electronic financial transactions between consumers and credit card issuing companies, and processes credit card verification. · a merchant account - typically obtained through a bank, requiring application, and a credit check Obtaining a merchant account can involve expensive application and set up fees. Approval can also be a very long process, and is made that much more difficult by the fact that the credit card is not physically "swiped" over the web. To ease this whole process, a new kind of service was born to handle processing of payments over the internet. Third party processors will "loan" you the use of their merchant account, and accept payments on your behalf. The 4 most popular 3rd party services for small business eCommerce are: PaySystems.com · has a small setup fee · no monthly fees · per transaction fees as low as $.35 + 3.95% of the transaction amount · includes shopping cart software · portion of transaction revenues held in reserve account against possible chargebacks and transaction disputes 2CheckOut.com · has a small setup fee · no monthly fees · per transaction fees of $.45 + 5.5% of the transaction amount · includes shopping cart software · portion of transaction revenues held in reserve account against possible chargebacks and transaction disputes PayPal.com business account · no setup fee · no monthly fees · per transaction fees range from a low of $.30 + 2.2% of the transaction amount to $.30 + $2.9% of the transaction amount · includes shopping cart software · funds are immediately available ClickBank.com · has a small setup fee · no monthly fees · per transaction fees of $1 + 7.5% of the transaction amount · includes single tier affiliate management · payouts on the 1st and 16th of each month There are many other choices available, but I have used these and know they are reputable and responsive to support issues. Of the 4, PayPal is the least expensive, by far. ClickBank appears to be the most expensive, but it can be a very inexpensive way to get started, if 1) you are not yet prepared to fork out an additional fee for affiliate management software or services, 2) you only want to sell downloadable products, and 3) a single-tier affiliate program is acceptable for your purposes. Well, this has been a shorter lesson than the ones preceding it, but you now have some other needed services to research and study. Your "To-Do" List There is no need to actually commit to a web hosting service, or a payment processor at this point - unless you have already begun work on your web site and want to get it published (uploaded to your server). You should, however, decide on your domain name at this point and go ahead and get it reserved. This shouldn't take long at all, so expect your next lesson to arrive in just a couple of days. Then we'll discuss actually creating your initial web pages and getting them published to your web site. Until then… All the best, --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ||{1}|| Legitimite Homebased Business | Freeones Residual Income | Freeblow Jobs[/url] - Resources to find the best home business ideas and residual income opportunities, that will allow e freeones to start making money.