Why should you have your own domain name?
In 1989, I got my first account on a machine that was connected to the
Internet, years before there was even a graphical Web browser, or even a
Web, for that matter. Then, practically the only domain names in use
belonged to
colleges & universities, government agencies, the military,
a few organizations concerned with the development of the Internet
itself and a handful of big high-tec.companies. I wrote home from
college to tell my parents to "get ready, it's going to take over."
Now, fifteen years later, it has, and mos.companies of all sizes and
shapes have websites, hundreds of millions of people have at least one
e-mail address and people use the Internet to find out all kinds of
information, from driving directions to weather forecasts to bank
account balances.
So how do you set yourself or
Your business apart on the Net with a
unique presence? There's one way establish your own domain name,
like "yourcompany.com". Registering a domain name used to be a daunting
process, but now, there ar.companies set up for the purpose of taking
care of the red-tape for you. Nowadays, it's as easy as deciding what
name you want to claim, finding out if it's available (and that's
automated!) and then registering it for yourself if it is. Then it's
yours to keep as long as you (or th.company you choose to handle it)
renew your registration every year. Think about it. You can have the
same email addresses for the rest of your life and even pass them down
to your children o.company. You are now in total control of never
losing contact via your email addresses. (or something like this)
When yo.combine it with proper website and e-mail hosting, the
establishment of your unique domain name gives you several advantages:
1) It increases your name recognition and allows your friends, family or
customers to remember more easily how to find you and your site. It's a
lot easier to remember
example.com than it is to remember
free-hosting.com/business/~example.
2) It gives you a more serious and professional "appearance" on the Net.
Even if they allowed it and could handle the volume of traffic, hosting
a bus.commercial website on an individual's free web space or on a free
server like GeoCities isn't very practical or professional.
3) It helps brand your image and adds a level of trust and integrity to your
site. You don't want to be the attorney at the city club with an e-mail
address like /group/article_announce/post?postID=SmK86mH3IvZCygY6bLfGjRtRRUUmrCK63HRMyODIEMpNtVFKRneqZKhzdQ21NPPvNiAYaNj-mou22H-KrQ joelaw38@... when everybody's passing out their
business cards!
4) It helps people find you through search engines. Sites like Yahoo!
and Google have taken on immense importance, and getting your site in
users' search results is key to establishing new relationships with
them. Many search engines only index the first page of a site with a
domain name, and some refuse to list pages on free hosting sites at all!
5) Nobody else will get the name that you need. In the early days of
the Web, people would register domain names later to be coveted by large
corporations, and a few made lots of money selling their rights to those
names before the practice was made illegal. But even now, anyone with a
business similar to yours may lay claim to the perfect name and you'd
have to settle for a less desirable choice.
6) It gives you a permanent "anchor" for your Internet identity. Even
if you're not ready to establish a website, you can still register the
name now and use it later. Most domain name registration services will
allow you to "park" your domain for as long as you wish without really
doing anything with it.
7) E-mail addresses hosted in association with your domain name will not
change, even if you switch ISPs or temporarily lose your access during a
move, for example.
Until fairly recently, all the great reasons to establish your own
domain name were outweighed for an individual or small-business by the
difficulty of actually doing it. That has changed, however, and finding
a hosting provider who will set you up with your own domain, e-mail and
a website is easy and inexpensive. It doesn't make any sense at all for
a business, or even an individual, to go another day without taking this
step forward. The Internet is here to stay it's important to make
sure that your Internet identity is too.
About the Author
Trevor Bauknight is a web designer and writer with over 15 years of
experience on the Internet. He specializes in the creation and
maintenance of business and personal identity online and can be reached
at /group/article_announce/post?postID=y957qMGGXP2q8wdy3ceAmvlTf8bmk6ulpSoqH9TTqk8IBYbDXI1Afc9wayI5kDRL4ikDv_Z9tZ7Vbw trevor@.... Stop by
cafeid.com for a free tryout of
the revolutionary SiteBuildingSystem and check out our super Flash
website and IMAP e-mail hosting solutions.complete with live support.
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