When you setup your hosting account you need to keep the future in mind. By that I mean that you need to plan for the growth of your web site. Many web site hosts sound good when you are getting started but as you grow your web site you may need additional features that could cost you dearly if you did not plan ahead.

Hosting features to consider:

• Web Space Provided
• Bandwidth provided
• Email addresses provided
• MySQL database provided
• Ability to install third party software

Will you have enough server space?

Server space is the amount of room that your host will provide to you to hold all of your files for your web site. You can only estimate at this point how much you are going to need. So what you need to ask is:
Can you increase the server space if you need to?
What will it cost for the next size package?

If you build and promote your website correctly then you will over time add more pages, pictures and features. All of these take up more space on the server. Make sure that your host can easily handle your growth. The last thing you want to do is build your site and then have to move your entire site to a new server.

Does your hosting package provide enough bandwidth?

The bandwidth that you use is based on how many visitors you receive and how many pages that they access while on your site. Keep in mind that pretty much everything uses bandwidth. Every time a page is accessed the content and pictures need to be loaded and this translates into bandwidth being used. Have you ever gone to a web page and see “Bandwidth Exceeded”.
That’s what happens when you run out.

Make sure that your host will charge an arm and a leg to increase your allotted bandwidth.

How many email addresses are enough?

I literally use hundreds of email addresses. Not everyone needs that many but I am very active on the internet and I use my email addresses to help me stay organized. There are several different ways to use email addresses. You can set them up as an actual email box or as an email forwarder.
When you setup an actual email address box your mail will be received and stored on your server until one of 2 things happens. You “pop” (download the mail) the address or you access it via webmail and view the mail.
Email forwarding sets up a virtual email address and forwards the mail to another email address. I use this feature a lot.
Consider this scenario:

You are searching around the internet for a business opportunity and as usual you have to provide you email address for more information. If you provide your main email address you may be inundated with emails from more than just the place that you originally subscribed. Well as you can imagine it can be virtually impossible to get unsubscribed from everywhere that your email address may end up. This is where forwarding comes in extremely handy. If you find that you are being overwhelmed with mail to a forwarded email address then just DELETE IT!

All the mail sent to that email address will stop being forwarded. If there are some places that you actually want to continue to receive email from then just go to those sites and update your email address to your main email.

Will you need a Database?

Web hosting does not always come with a MySQL database. You may never need one but again you must try and plan for the future and at least be aware of what it will take to upgrade and get a database. You will probably need a database if you are going to have any of the following:

• Shopping Cart
• Members Area
• Polls
• Contests
• Data Collection
• Blogs
• Forums

These are just a few of the things that will require a database.

Will you be using third party software?

Third party software is software that you can purchase and install on your web site. A few examples are:

• Shopping Carts
• Form Software
• Newsletter Software
• Ad Server Software
• Custom Applications

I install 3rd party software on every site that I build. This allows me complete control over my site. Most web hosts do provide the ability to install from a list of software programs that they have available but many do not allow you to upload and install your own. Watch out for these!

One last thing to consider is the use of web hosts that provide you the ability to build your own web sites online. I am not saying that this is a bad thing. It has allowed for many newbie’s to build their own web sites and get their feet wet on the Internet. I caution the use of these sites because of their limitations. You may never see the limitations depending on what you are doing with your web site.

BUT

If you ever want to move your site you will probably not be able to without an excessive amount of work. The images and software that you used to build your site are not transferable.

If you are looking for hosting that has all of the features that you will ever need go here and take a look:

Web Site Hosting

How to Choose a Good Domain Name

1. Try to make sure that your URL name is the same as your Web Site Name

Many people pick a domain name that has nothing to do with the URL that they have picked for their website. This is a big oversight when choosing the correct domain name. You want your web site to be easily remembered and also very easy to identify what your web site is about just from the name. For example, woodworker.com is obviously about woodworking. I do realize that sometimes you need to be creative because the domain name that you want is taken. If you find that the domain that you want is available in a .net or .biz but not in the .com that you really wanted I would do a bit more searching. Most people that cannot remember if your site is .com .net or .biz or whatever it may be will always assume that it is a .com and then there went your potential visitor.

Always remember that no one except perhaps you will make sure to memorize your domain name.

If you have an established business or product name and you find that the name is already taken you may want to consider trying to purchase the name from the existing owner. They will probably want a higher price than what you would pay for a new unused name but it may be worth it. Look up the WhoIs information on the name and contact the owner.

You will also want to consider the popular keywords for your new website when selecting your domain name. You can use this free keyword generator here: http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com

Just enter some words that you would enter if you were looking for the product or service that you will be offering. You may have to spend several hours brainstorming to come up with a web site that relates to your product or service, contains popular keywords and is also available.

But do not skimp on the time to do this research correctly. I took the time to do this on one of my sites and with the proper name and content was able to get 1^st page rankings within 2 weeks. The time spent is well worth it.

2. Should you choose a short or long domain?

You are allowed to have up to 67 characters in your domain name. That is more than enough to be able to choose a name that is meaningful for your web site. While shorter domain names are easier to remember and less likely to have typo’s entered when going to your site the longer domain name can be much more descriptive of your product or service and you can load them with more of the keywords relative to your web site. As an example, say we are promoting solar tops for golf carts. A good descriptive name would be SolarPoweredGolfCarts. Does it follow all of my previous rules? It just so happens that it does follow all of the rules. The name certainly says what the site is about. The name is also packed with keywords relative to the product. It uses 21 characters so roughly one third of what is allowed. Not too short and not too long just Right!

As far as people remembering you domain name so that they can find you. Odds are that someone is going to find you through some sort of advertising that you are doing for the website. Whether that is online classifieds or organic search rankings they will be clicking their way to your site not “remembering” what your site is and how it was spelt. So you see that the correct keywords will be much more valuable in the long run.

3. Should you use Hyphenated Names?

There are a few things to consider with a hyphenated domain name.

• Hyphens are easy to forget when entering the domain name
• If you or someone else is trying to refer your site the hyphens do not exactly roll off the tongue.
• They are somewhat of a pain to type in.

The huge advantage is that search engines cannot easily see what the keywords are to your site.

In general I would choose a name that is not hyphenated unless it is a last resort because you cannot seem to find the version that you need in a non-hyphenated domain name.

4. Should you use a plural or “the” and “my” versions of a domain name?

Domain registrars will suggest alternates to the domain name that you are searching for such as:

TheSolarPoweredGolfCart.com
MySolarPoweredGolfCart.com
SolarPoweredGolfCarts.com

So should you ever take the suggested sites?

As long as you promote the full domain name of your website then these suggestions are fine if they make sense. In many cases if your budget will allow you may want to take several versions of your domain name. There are advanced methods of promotion that would make having multiple domain names advantageous. It also keeps competitors from registering and redirecting these names to their web sites.

5. Should I get a .com, .net, .biz, .info or what?

What domain you should get will usually depend on your product or service and where you will market it. If you are catering to an International audience then be sure to get a .com or a .net

If you are marketing a local only product or service then you may want to get a country specific domain name. Although there are many schools of thought on the selection or not of a top level domain name there is no solid information that definitely point to any one conclusion.

I personally always try for a .com extension and I also more time than not will purchase the .net
if my product or service is country specific then I would also purchase that domain name. You can always redirect the names that you will not have content on right away to your primary web site.

6. The Long and the Short of it

The main idea in selecting the correct domain name is to get it right from the beginning. You do not want the headache of trying to change your domain name later. You could potentially lose a lot of ground in your search engine rankings not to mention all of the wasted advertising to the “wrong” site.

It may seem like quite a chore with going thru all of the above steps but consider the chore of doing it wrong the first time only to have to come from behind to do it right later.

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