Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Registering more than one (multiple) Domain Name

If you're thinking about registering more than one domain name, you have the right idea. Registering multiple domains names is a great way to protect your brand name, market your business, create a dynamic online identity and offers more ways to be found in search engines.

Benefits for registering multiple domain names include:

Protect your brand and online identity.
Keeps competition from registering a similar domain name.
You can market and promote different products and services.
You can point more traffic to your main website.
Greater opportunities to market and be listed in search engines.
Create advertising strategies for each domain to reach different markets.
Provide more ways to be found when potential customers search the Internet.
Capture misspellings of your domain name.

There are great benefits for registering multiple domain names and the only downside would be cost, but with quality domain name registration averaging around $10 a year it is not a huge investment to protect your brand or online identity.

Should I Register Multiple Domain Name Extensions?
Yes, think of the problems created if you bought a domain name called “tophats.com” and sold hats, and then you find out a competitor bought “tophats.net” or “tophats.info” or “tophats.us” and also sold hats, definitely a situation to avoid.

What is Full Term or Half Term Domain Registration?
Full term refers to registering your domain name for a 10 year period while half term refers to registering your domain name for a 5 year period. Some claim by registering your domain for full or half term the website ranks higher in search engines. We cannot confirm this theory as no one really knows how search engine crawlers score or weigh a website but the age of a website does seem to score higher so the longer your website has been around the more likely it will score higher with search engine crawlers.

Protect your brand name; buy domain names now.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Social Networking and Linking

There are numerous articles (tips & tricks) on the Internet on how to create links, also referred to as back links to your website, listings or social network pages. Like everything else these days some individuals follow proper etiquette and some abuse the system. At Sea N Sun we refer to abusers as the Back Linking Bandits.

Not all links are created equal when it comes to search engines. Search engine crawlers score quality links higher than bad links, therefore quality links will produce better search results for your Website, Listings or Social Network pages.

There is another type of link we like to call intrusion linking. This is where individuals leave posts, remarks, ask questions or get on your blog just to leave a link to their own site advertising their business on your real estate. These individuals are who we refer to as the back linking bandits because they are stealing blocks of your advertising space.

The other day we received a compliment on an article we had posted on our Sea N Sun blog site. Normally we would try to thank you but this back linking bandit left his comment and a back link to his site promoting the same product. Rude, discourteous and inappropriate are a few polite words that come to mind but it was not there for more than a couple of minutes before it was flagged, reported as spam and deleted. There are a few exceptions that can be overlooked, for example on Merchant Circle individuals can leave ratings or compliments. These too show up on your profile page for the world to see and many do leave back links but, if they give you a five star rating, well at least they kind of earned that spot so you are the judge.

When you create a profile at a social page, listing or setup a blog site we recommend you monitor it, it could be filling up with unwanted back links promoting other businesses. Look in the message settings of the social site so you can check the appropriate settings to receive emails or text messages to keep on top of things. Many sites offer spam protection, flag or report these back linking bandits as spam so you never see them on your site again. If your blog site doesn’t offer spam protection you might want to think about purchasing one that does and lastly delete unwanted back links from your advertising space. Look in the help of the social site to learn how to remove unwanted links if you are not sure how to.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

What do I Need for a Basic Website

What do I Need for a basic Website

What do I need for a Website?

So you’re a small business owner or someone with an idea and thinking about owning a Website but don’t clearly understand the technical lingo and are not sure how it all works.

Web Site Options

One option is to hire a Website developer or Web designer to build and manage your Website, clearly this is the more expensive option up front. Small business owners or individuals on a tight budget do have a second option to keep the cost of a Web site at a minimum, build your own Website.

Build My Own Website?

Sea N Sun as well as most Website design companies would prefer you hire us to build and manage your Web site for the obvious reason; we make more money, but if you can figure out how to use Facebook® or similar you can build your own professional looking Website with little or no experience.

How can I build a Web Site

Sea N Sun offers over 1,500 templates to choose, so pick a design, type your content, add pictures and publish your new Web site, it’s that easy. As you learn you can use formatting and advanced features to enhance your new Web site further.

Web Designer or Build a Website

Step 1 – Web designer or Build my own

· Decide whether you will hire a Web designer or build your own Website.

There are many major differences doing it yourself verses a professional Web designer and a professional will likely produce better results in search engines giving your site more visibility to people searching the Web. But if you have a desire to build your own site don’t let this discourage you, with a little effort and learn as you go attitude you too can produce satisfactory results.

Develop Ideas for Website

Step 2 – Develop a clear idea

· Develop a clear idea what you want or need on a Website.

You need to have a clear idea what you want on your website whether you build it or need to relay your ideas to a Web designer.

What do I need on a Web Site

Think about how many pages you need to cover basic information you want to relay and publish, expanding the site can be done later. The landing page (some call it Home page) should outline all your services or products with links to the other pages. If you offer two types of service then you might want a page on each to detail those services. Other pages might include an about us, contact or meet our staff etc., also think about forms, social networking or affiliations you might want to display on the pages.

Domain Name

Step 3 – Purchase a Domain Name

· You need to search for and purchase (register) a Domain Name

A domain is a name you use to identify the address of your Website. A domain name is like your home address; just as a letter addressed to 52 Main Street, City, State, and Zip Code allows the post office to find and deliver your mail, a domain name allows Web users to find your Website.

What is a good Domain Name

Example: John sells used books and thinks it would be cool to have www.johns.com but a better name would be www.johnsusedbooks.com. Why is www.johnsusedbooks.com better? It will produce better search results with search engines like Google®, Yahoo®, and Bing® to name a few.

Hosting

Step 4 – Purchase Hosting

· You need to purchase hosting

Now that you own a domain name you need a place for the Web Site to live and be found. Hosting companies provide a Web server and private folders that store the files (pages) that make up the Web Site.

Ready for a Website

That’s all you need to get a basic Web site up and running. Please contact us with questions or for information on a more advanced site.