Lesson 3: Name, Logo, Business Cards, Letterhead, Website
Your website and e-mail address
You really can't be in business today without e-mail and an e-mail address. And, I'm sorry, but christine@aol.com isn't going to cut it and neither is chris593@hotmail.com. Even an address with your local ISP provider isn't good enough because he may go out of business or be bought out and then you will suddenly have a new e-mail address - not good for business.
The only way to get an e-mail address suitable for a business, one you control and one you can add to as you want, is to register a domain name, attach it to a web site and let your web site run your e-mail. There are two concerns with this: one, you have to get a good registrar and a good host and two, you have to choose a good domain name.
To register a domain name today costs anywhere from $10.00 to $50.00 depending on the domain and on the registrar. A couple of years ago Network Solutions had a monopoly on registering most domains and they had terrible service. When this was opened up I tried a few of the cheaper registrars and I had problems with lost passwords, changing information and payments. Most of my domains are back with Network Solutions, now owned by Verisign and found under http://netsol.com . They charge $35.00 per year, more than most others, but have improved their service. I stopped wasting my time looking for alternatives to save a few bucks.
The best host I've found to be Pair Networks at http://pair.com . They charge $5.95/month for a web site which is large enough to start and which will do e-mail. Their set-up fees are reasonable and they have an excellent record. Sure, you can get web space for less or for free but web space which shows other people's ads to your customers is not acceptable and I haven't come across better value than Pair.
Choosing a domain name can be a problem. What you want is a short, memorable name which relates to your company's name and which is a dot-com or dot-net. If your business is outside the U.S., you may also choose a country suffix such as dot-ca for Canada or dot-uk for England. In any case, you'll probably find that your ideal name is not available because someone else has registered it. Network Solutions at http://netsol.com/en_US/name-it/?_DARGS=... has a service which will suggest lots of alternatives to a name which is taken. Get a bunch of alternatives there and see how they look on your business cards, letterheads and as an e-mail address. If there are a couple you like, register them both and make up your mind later or keep both and use them for different purposes. Part 2 of our recommended resource, "Complete Idiot's Guide to Starting an Online Business", has more information on registering domain names.
Let's review what you have after you've carried out the above activities:
- a domain name, say, "best-small-biz.com" which you've registered in your own name with a registrar;
- a host who will host the domain name at http://best-small-biz.com, http://www.best-small-biz.com and will host your e-mail;
- an e-mail box which will collect all e-mail sent to the above domain. This means you'll be able to use info@best-small-biz.com, sales@best-small-biz.com and anything else you'd like, but they will all go to the same e-mail box from where you can retrieve the mail.
- a web site on which you can post information about your small business; and
- control of all of the above, meaning that, no matter whether you change any of the suppliers or they go out of business, you will still own and keep your web site and e-mail addresses.
You get all that for a cost of around $100.00/year - not bad value for something that you absolutely have to have if you're going to be in business.
