Well, the answer is a resounding ‘no’ as far as Freezone’s marketing team is concerned. No sooner have they helped many small businesses enjoy the benefits of our Ultimate web hosting package at half the normal price, they’re now offering 6 months free web hosting on the same package.

It’s actually not a surprise that the Ultimate web hosting package has proved to be a big hit with people looking for UK web hosting. The package is packed full of features – not only do you get 10GB of disk and unlimited bandwidth, you’ll also be able to benefit from 5 databases, unlimited mailboxes, SSL certificate, a Sitebuilder and data back and restore.

And that’s not all. The Ultimate web hosting package also comes with WordPress allowing you to start blogging immediately. (In fact, we use WordPress to write this very blog.)

But it doesn’t end there. Instead of you having to buy domain names, Freezone throw in 5 free domain names. And importantly, provide you the facility to host 5 separate websites under the one single package.

All this and 6 months free! Perhaps not all good things come to an end. At least not as far as UK web hosting is concerned.

domain name · Free domain name · Free web hosting · UK web hosting · Web Hosting

When searching for a new domain name, it’s not unusual to find that your first few choices of .com or .co.uk domains have already been registered by someone else.

Simple, generic .com and .co.uk domains have long been registered, diminishing the choice available to anyone registering a domain today. In fact, many people are choosing company names based on available domain names rather than the other way round.

Certainly, as a web hosting company, we talk to customers everyday who have to compromise on their ideal domain name because it’s already taken by someone else.

Well, that is about to change with the recent introduction of the .co extension. Until recently the dedicated extension for Columbia, it’s now been made available to companies around the world.

Not only is this a great opportunity for you to register a domain of your (first) choice, it’s also your chance to secure a domain name or two for investment purposes. In fact, judging by the buzz around the web hosting industry, the latter is proving to be pretty popular choice. In fact, over the last few months, we have had more calls about .co domain names than any other issue.

So, if you missed your chance to secure your ideal domain in the past, or are simply interested in investing in potentially profitable .co domain names, call your web hosting company today. (Of course, you are free to call our team or visit our website too!)

domain name · Web Hosting

As a web hosting company, we have seen a trend in customers buying more and more variations of their domain name. And it’s not simply the domain extension (.com, .co.uk, etc) but also similar sounding and common spelling mistakes too.

The reason behind this is pretty obvious. Why would anyone build a brand online and then have someone else come along and buy the same domain name with a different extension and enjoy the benefits of ready customers?

So if you don’t already own the key variations of your domain name, consider how it would impact your business if someone else was to register those alternatives. If you are unsure about which extensions / alternatives are important, have a chat with your web hosting company.

Note: you don’t have to buy every extension – .com, .co.uk and maybe .net and biz would be sufficient.

buying domain name · Domain · domain name

A short while ago, I visited a large exhibition here in London aimed at business start ups. There were plenty of ‘entrepreneurs’ full of confidence of a person about to launch the next big thing. (It’s strange how the success of reality TV shows such as Dragons’ Den and The Apprentice has turned us all into a nation of entrepreneurs.)

There were plenty of gurus / mentors / all-round successful business folks eager to dispense free advice and inspiration. There were also plenty of experts with failed businesses equally happy to point out their own mistakes! Well, we all learn from mistakes.

Of course, there were also a lot of exhibitors offering practical help and tools to get your business off the ground. As a web hosting company, I found the services offered by ‘company registration’ agents most interesting.

Essentially, these chaps allow you to register your company with Companies House, buy a domain name, web hosting package and website design, all at a click of a mouse. All very convenient and fast.

However, there was a catch. The cost of a domain name and web hosting from a large number of these agents was dramatically more than what you would pay a dedicated web hosting company.

Our advice is simple. By all means use these agents if you are registering a new business. For your web hosting needs, however, shop around – Google ‘web hosting’ (better still ‘UK web hosting’) to find a dedicated web hosting company where you will pay a fraction of the price of some of these agents and, equally important, receive full technical support to get your website up and running quickly and efficiently.

Company registration · domain name · UK web hosting · Web Hosting

Over the last few weeks or so we have been running some interviews for an undergraduate placement opportunity here at Freezone.

While I don’t subscribe to the suggestion that our education system has been dumbed down, there does seem to be a lack of concentration on digital marketing.

Even amongst those reading more commercial subjects with a focus on business or marketing, students seem very unfamiliar with basic terms such as domain name, web hosting and search engine marketing. (Familiarity with social media tends to be self driven rather than being ‘taught’ as part of a course.)

Given that practically most companies now have a website and use some sort of digital marketing and also given that channels such as direct mail are in decline, we need to ensure that our graduates are equipped with the right kind of knowledge and skills to succeed in a digital economy.

If there are any academic establishments looking to develop a practical curriculum for all things ‘web’, we would be happy to help.

domain name · Search engine optimisation · Social Media · Web Hosting

In our previous blog, we talked about some of the benefits of securing a ‘second-hand’ domain name. Today we’ll run through some of the methods used to identify and then analyse strengths and weaknesses of expired / expiring domain names.

Let’s start with how to find an expired / expiring domain name. The easiest option here is if you know what you are looking for – may be you are aware that one of your competitors is about to close for business and potentially allow their domain to expire.

In this case, you simply visit WHOIS and keep an eye on the expiry date. If the domain is not renewed, it will be released for anyone to re-register within 90 days.

However, you may be looking for a domain name associated with certain keywords. Here, the challenge is slightly greater and you will need some additional tools / software. Make your first port of call a search engine and enter a phrase such as “expired domain name search”. You’ll find a good choice of free-to-use websites and paid-for software that will allow you to search for expired / expiring domain names based on a criteria of your choice.

A lot of these websites and software packages can be pretty inefficient and will still require a good degree of perseverance on your part. However, eventually, this process should pay off.

Another option is to keep an eye on domain auction websites – try SEDO, the Ebay of domain name auctions.

There are, of course, more obvious sources, namely, web hosting companies. If a domain name is hosted with them, they’ll be the first to know if it has not been renewed.

So once you have identified your domain name, how do you evaluate it?

The key measures are a domain name’s current rankings and inbound links. These along with other key variables usually determine where a website appears on search engines. Two key sources to view some of these metrics are Alexa and Google.

Visit Alexa and enter the domain name you are interested in and you’ll be presented with a range of information about the domain. Two key elements are Traffic Rank (the lower the better) and Sites Linking In (the higher the better).

Google too allocates a Page Rank (0-10) for each website it indexes – rule of thumb here is the higher the PR the better the positioning on search engine results. Simply search for Google PR Calculator in any search engine where you will be able to enter a domain name and discover its PR.

Of course, there are many other sites (for example, Linkvendor and Linkdiagnosis) providing similar analysis for existing and expired domain names. And while results of analysis will vary from source to source (Alexa, Google, etc) you can certainly get a very good impression of the likely success a domain may yield.

Happy hunting!

Domain · domain name · second-hand domain name · Web Hosting

Whenever new markets develop and mature, second-hand markets tend to follow quickly. Take a look at the second-hand markets in cars, computers, video games, household goods – in fact, it’s a very, very long list.

And now, you can add domain names to that ever burgeoning list.

Whether it’s existing domain names that are auctioned off or expired names that are re-registered by new owners, there are many benefits of buying ‘second-hand’ domain names.

For example, a domain name with an associated website would have been indexed by search engines. It may have attracted significant traffic. In other words, it would have built an online presence. Certainly this would give you a head start compared with launching a new website under a brand new domain name.

Of course, from a cynical point of view, one might wonder as to why anyone would want to sell or allow to expire a successful domain name.

Well, actually, there are some fairly good reasons. There are plenty of people who simply register and sell domain names – that’s their business (and some are doing a roaring trade). There might be others for whom the business hasn’t quite delivered the returns that they had planned for and either sell or simply allow their domain name to expire. By buying that domain name, you are also getting the associated traffic.

So what kind of second-hand domain names could you benefit from?

Well, let’s start with variation of your existing domain name. Perhaps with / without the hyphen, a .com, .co.uk, .net or dot something else you don’t already have. Then there may be competitors who’ve allowed their domain names to expire. Potentially, all the traffic that was previously going to their website could now be directed to your website.

Of course, you don’t have to limit this to domain names related to your existing business – you might find yourself inspired by some of these second-hand domain names to start a new venture!

And the cost of registering an expired domain name? No more than registering a new one – in fact, most UK web hosting companies offer .co.uk domain names for less than £3.

Now, before you part with any money, there are a few key questions you might want to consider:

• how do I keep an eye on domain names that are coming up for renewal (and might not be renewed)
• what Google page-rank does / did a specific domain name have?
• how many inbound links are / were there to that domain name?
• what sort of traffic does / did it attract?

This is the equivalent of getting the AA to run a detailed check on the Porsche you are about to buy – except that it’s free, you can do it yourself and you won’t get any oil on your hands!

However, we’ll do this on our next blog – together with answers to above questions, we’ll direct you to some useful websites that will allow you to assess the real value of a second-hand domain name.

auctioning domain names · domain name · second-hand domain name

It may be due to the success of the reality TV shows such as Dragon’s Den and The Apprentice, or it may simply be the result of the recession, but it looks like that UK is now a nation of entrepreneurs.

According to a survey by the recruiter Kelly Services, more than one-fifth of respondents described themselves as ‘self-employed’ and one-in-five also said that they wanted to start their own business.

Certainly, as a UK web hosting company, we have seen a noticeable growth over the last couple of years in more and more people buying domain names and web hosting to launch new online businesses.

While this trend may well be a reflection of the lack of opportunities in the employment market, the internet has undoubtedly been a catalyst in encouraging people to discover their entrepreneurial side and helping them launch new businesses. Technology has lowered barriers to market entry, created a more level playing field and has effectively democratised business opportunities.

Registering a company could not be simpler or quicker. Simply Google ‘company registration’ and you’ll be presented with a plethora of companies where you can fill in an online form and within hours have your business registered with Companies House.

A further click of a mouse and you can secure a domain name and web hosting for your business. And now with web hosting companies offering easy-to-use tools such as Sitebuilder, you could, in fact, have a website up and running within a couple of hours.

So, if you see your self as the next Bannatyne or Meaden and want to test out your business ideas, you can do it today. Right now, in fact.

Business startup · Company registration · domain name · Sitebuilder · Web Hosting

We hear a lot of people asking this question. After all, they say, they have paid good money for web hosting and yet when they search for keywords related to their business, their website is not to be found anywhere on search engines.

In fact, there are still plenty of businesses that assume that all they need to do is register a domain name, buy some web hosting and their website will miraculously appear on top of Google. Sadly, the reality is somewhat different.

Unless businesses take search engine optimisation (SEO) seriously, they are unlikely to realise the potential of their website.

Now, I don’t propose to write a best practice manual here, but let me distil a few key components.

First, what exactly is SEO?

In plain English, it’s the process whereby you undertake some tasks that will help your website to appear on search engines (towards the top few pages) when your potential customers type in keywords associated with your business.

There are two broad areas you need to think about – on-page optimisation and off-page optimisation.

Now, search engines aren’t as clever as you might imagine – they can’t recognise what a website is about simply by looking at it as we humans can do in an instant. So, you have to tell them by using special notations. You have to ensure there is sufficient amount of relevant content on your website. There is more, but fundamentally, this on-page optimisation allows search engines to index your website based on the nature of your business.

The second stage, and some regard this as much more critical, is building links (effectively votes) from other websites to your website. This is off-page optimisation. More popular and relevant a website is to your business, more weight search engines will allocate to a link from it to you. The more relevant links you have to your website, the better the positioning on search engine results.

And here is the key bit of advice – think about SEO at the same time you secure a domain name, web hosting and start creating your website. Don’t leave it as the last thing on your list.

Let me leave you with a final thought…not optimising your website is a bit like opening a business, but not telling anyone about it. No business would do that. Or would they?!

domain name · Hosting · Search engine optimisation · Web Hosting

Email has now firmly replaced snail mail both a business communication tool as well as a social communication tool. I mean, when did you last put pen to paper to write a letter to a customer or a client, or auntie Sue for that matter?!

Over the last few years, direct mail too has been dramatically cut to be replaced with email marketing. However, while companies have spent money on securing great domain names and reliable web hosting for their websites, there still seems to be a scatter gun approach to email marketing. And this despite the one-to-one nature of email marketing.

To help you implement best practice in email marketing, here are our top 5 tips:

1. Target your audience with care

Whether you build your own email list or buy it from outside, make sure it’s ‘opted in’.  Anything else is unlikely to produce any results and, in fact, is likely to cause more damage to your business by being perceived as spam

2. Make sure content / offer is relevant

Relevancy is key. Whether it’s a newsletter or an offer led marketing message, ask yourself…is it relevant to my audience? If in doubt, change the content / message.

3. Make your call to action clear

Once you’ve sorted out the target audience and your offer, make sure that your call to action is clear – what do you want your audience to do? Is it to visit your website? Buy or try a product? Whatever the call to action, make it explicit.

4. Don’t bombard your audience

What’s the right frequency of contact with your audience? Daily, weekly, monthly? Build an understanding of your audience – in fact, ask how often they would like to hear from you. Too frequently and you’ll be regarded as spam. Too infrequent and you could lose impact

5. Make sure your email reaches its target

There is no point to a highly targeted email that never actually reaches its destination. If your web hosting company’s servers are black listed, your email would be marked as spam and is unlikely to reach its intended recipient. Ensure your web hosting company is white listed. Ask them about how they maintain their white listed status.

This is really a brief introduction to effective email marketing – we’ll pick this topic up again in the future. In the meantime, contact your web hosting company for more advice and hopefully some simple tools to help you with sending out bulk emails.

Domain · domain name · Email Marketing · Hosting · Web Hosting