Charlotte Howard Web Design: General Information

How to Choose a Good Domain Name

1. A good domain name is easy for web users to remember and easy to spell.
2. It suggests the nature of your product or service.
3. It strengthens your brand or trademark.
4. It’s free of legal conflicts with trademarks belonging to other businesses.

TIP: Choose a domain name that has high-value keywords in it, appropriate to your business. This is helpful when optimizing your web site for the search engines.

TIP: Get your name. You never know when you might become famous or need to create a new business whose main product is YOU. This also simply prevents someone else from getting yourname.com and riding your fame or taking your internet lead.

TIP: Domain names are valuable! They can be re-sold at any time for profit. Got a good idea? Buy the domain name. It just might be a great investment.

SUPER BIG TIP: Buy your main domain name for as many years as you can. The search engines do value a business more when the domain name is purchased for a longer period of time.

SUPER BIG TIP: Be ready to buy your domain name on the spot if it is available. If you wait an hour or a day to think about it - it will likely be gone.

 

What Do Web site Extensions Actually Mean?

The following Top Level Domain extensions are categories of Internet domain names. These categories traditionally serve to describe the type of company, organization, or other category that is represented. There are many categories to choose from, with some extensions (also called suffixes) more popular than others.

.com stands for "commercial," and is the most widely used extension in the world. Most businesses prefer a .com domain name because it is a highly recognized symbol for having a business presence on the Internet.

.net stands for "network," and is most commonly used by Internet service providers, Web-hosting companies or other businesses that are directly involved in the infrastructure of the Internet. Additionally, some businesses choose domain names with a .net extension for their intranet web sites.

.org stands for "organization," and is primarily used by non-profits groups or trade associations.

.biz is used for small business web sites.

.info is for credible resource websites and signifies a "resource" web site. It's the most popular extension beyond .com, .net and .org.

.us is for American web sites. It has the largest amount of available names in inventory.

.mobi (also known as DotMobi) is a top-level domain dedicated to delivering the Internet to mobile devices via the Mobile Web.

.ws was originally designated as the country code for Western Samoa, but is now commonly used as an acronym for "Web Sites." It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

.name is the only domain extension specifically designed for personal use. It is commonly used for easy to remember e-mail addresses and personal web sites that display photos or personal information about an individual.

.edu A top-level Internet domain used by schools, colleges, universities and other educational groups mostly in the U.S. and Canada

.cc was originally the country code for Coco's Keeling Islands. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

.bz was originally designated as the country code for Belize, but is now commonly used by small business who can't get the name they want using the .biz extension. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

.tv is for rich content/multi-media web sites, commonly used within the entertainment or media industry.

.gs is the country code for the South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

.ms is the country code for Montserrat. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

.tc is the country code for the Turks & Caicos Islands. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

.vg is the country code for the British Virgin Islands. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

TIP: Always go for the .com first. It has the highest prestige. If you can, purchase your domain name with as many appropriate extensions as possible. If you don’t, someone else will.

TIP: Additional domain names are powerful advertising tools. One example would be to use one domain name for an advertising campaign in a magazine and have it “forward” to your main website. Then, you can track how effective the ad was at generating traffic to your main web site by looking at your statistics. Web site statistics are provided by your hosting company.

TIP: Always use your web address on every piece of communication your business uses - on every e-mail, on every ad, at every presentation. Bonus: Get a good tag line and use it with your web address. Why should anyone go to your web site? Your tag line should be compelling enough to give them a reason to do so.

TIP: When you are searching for domain names, be ready to BUY! Buy it on the spot. Do not wait another day. It might be gone.

SUPER BIG TIP: Always manage your own domain names. You control your web presence by simply going through the steps of purchasing your domain names, keeping them in your own account and paying your renewal fees on time.

 

What’s in an E-mail Address?

Should you use a web-based e-mail account like Yahoo or Gmail for your business? Most business people would say no. It’s unprofessional, amateurish, and a missed marketing opportunity. That being said, there are some benefits to those free or low-fee e-mail accounts that many professionals still use.

• Anywhere, anytime access. Don’t have a laptop? Not in your office? No problem. You can log-in to your account using anyone else’s computer.
• Tons of storage. If you are handling and storing large files for long periods of time, web-based e-mail is pretty accommodating.
• Stability. As examples, Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail online e-mail services very rarely go down. While no servers have 100% up-time, these giants are pretty close.
• Extra features: news, chat, multi-language support, slick interfaces, spam filters, virus scanning, etc...

TIP: Use both. Use your domain e-mail whenever possible. Set up a forward so that a copy of your message also goes to your web-based e-mail, just in case you are traveling, or your Outlook is crashing, or your server is down and you still need to communicate, or, or, or... You can even do this on a temporary basis.

TIP: Many of the benefits of internet-based e-mail can also be offered by your website host. Ask how you can access your mail up on the server.

TIP: Your host probably has many e-mail services and abilities that you don’t know about, like auto-responders, forwarding, black listing and white listing abilities, spam controls, etc… All businesses have different needs. Give your host a call and see what products they have to offer.

TIP: E-mail addresses are also a valuable way to track your advertising dollar. Use unique e-mail addresses at different locations on the web to track leads, or on individual marketing campaigns to track your ROI.

 

E-Mail Etiquette

How many clients do you have? How many important e-mails do you get in one day? I get dozens and dozens of e-mails everyday, not including Spam, and I archive all of them. I have e-mail storage going back several years.

One thing I have found is - boy do I love good e-mail manners! Here is a brief list of my favorite obvious and not-so-obvious E-mail Tips to help you communicate efficiently online.

1. Number 1 - My absolute favorite tip is.... Write a unique and descriptive Subject for every e-mail you send that accurately describes what the topic of the message is. This helps the recipient find important information fast in their overwhelming sea of e-mail. And, it helps to easily recognize Spam. The reason I know an e-mail is Spam before I open it is because of the Subject line. To me, a long Subject line is helpful and preferred.
   
   
2. Do not write in all CAPS. This appears as if the recipient is being yelled at and might cause someone's back to rise up a bit.
   
   
3. Write complete sentences. Please capitalize and punctuate properly. Run Spell Check. It actually helps businesses run more efficiently if extra effort is used to send clearly written e-mails.
   
   
4. Use a Signature on every e-mail. Put your phone number and your website on it, at least. It's a great marketing tool!
   
   
5. Sometimes, e-mail is not the way to go. Try to determine whether a communication string or dialog would be more efficient over the phone. A series of 10 e-mails back and forth could be a 30-second phone call. It's called time management.

 

Should I pay someone to submit my site to the search engines?

Quick Answer: NO! Take your wallet and RUN FAR AWAY!

Long Answer: I have designed over 100 websites as well as my own. I have never submitted a single site to any search engine. All my sites are on page 1 of the search engines, especially Google, and can be there within days for certain phrases. All you need to get started is ONE GOOD LINK!

Dangerous: It can actually be harmful to your online presence if it appears that your website is being repetitively submitted to dozens or hundreds of search engines in an automatic fashion over a short period of time.

Search Engine Submissions - A Dirty Little Secret: Anyone who is selling (or even giving away for "free") Search Engine Submissions, monthly or yearly, is either taking advantage of your internet naivety or is hopelessly behind on what is currently happening in the Search Engine Marketing (SEM) world on the web.

What you should do or pay someone to do: Submit your site to relevant Portals and Directories that are TRUSTED. Some are free, some are fee-based.