If you are considering registering a new domain, securing your privacy is very important. Failing to do so exposes your personal information to everybody with access to a computer. The process of registering a new domain involves providing contact information such as phone number, email address, name, city, and post office address. ICANN, the body that is tasked with overseeing domain name registration requires this information. While this is for noble purposes, unscrupulous individuals can misuse this information. The following reasons show why it is important to have domain privacy.

Avoid Spamming
The Whois database is freely available and anyone can login and get details unhindered. Spammers have created spam bots and used them to trawl the site for owner email addresses. This contact information is then sold or used to send unsolicited junk mail to your inbox. Spamming is the first doorway before things become more serious and scary.

Avoid Hacking
Your unprotected domain details can be used by hackers to gain access to your site. If you are just starting out, the cash to set up a secure site might be limited. Hackers are quite adept at taking advantage of such loopholes to penetrate your site. You may not even not notice that you site has been compromised. This could come to light after serious security breaches prompt you to call in the experts.

Avoid Identity Theft
This is very serious and has happened to site owners who only took steps when it was too late. Someone can use your details to engage in criminal activities which in turn could land you in serious legal trouble.

While this is certainly frightening, there are steps you can take to keep your personal information safe. To start with, IT experts agree unanimously that domain privacy is your first line of defense. This ensures that your contact details and personal information is not freely available. Domain registrars provide this service for an extra fee. Anyone who tries to look up your details on the Whois database will only see the registrar details. This security is invaluable compared with the damage hackers can wreak with access to personal details. You can also rest easy at night safe in the knowledge that no one is going to turn up uninvited to harass your family.

Domain · Hosting · Small business · Small businesses · Web Hosting

Freezone Internet, the UK’s top web hosting company, has created yet another way to serve their customers. Listening to their customers’ complaints about the traditional technical support, Freezone has decided to implement a remote desktop customer support.

Traditional tech support often involves lengthy phone conversations and irritated customers. Especially if the customer is unfamiliar with computers and their programs. Remote support, on the other hand, allows a tech advisor to access the user’s computer from theirs. Freezone uses this set-up to do everything from setting up email addresses, to setting up web hosting.

Although the thought of giving a stranger access to something as private as a computer may give some people pause, the remote desktop access at Freezone Internet is completely safe. It takes place over a secure and encrypted connection, which helps to make sure hackers cannot access any information, and if a customer is having trouble with a website that involves identifying information such as credit card numbers or birthdays, those fields are blocked from the support staff’s view. In addition, the sessions are completely under customer control, giving them the ability to shut down the link whenever they choose.

For those who do not have a land-line, or those who simply do not wish to tie it up with a long customer service phone call, Freezone offers easy & reliable alternatives. Their support staff, consisting of experienced CSRs, or customer service representatives, can offer assistance via chat as well. There are three steps to beginning a remote session:

Step 1 - Call or connect to the chat site, and ask for a remote support session.
Step 2 – Once an agent has responded, click the ‘generate code’ button, give code to agent, and do not close the  window.
Step 3 -  Follow all on-screen prompts.

If there is a problem with your computer, or you simply could use some help with a webpage, why not try Freezone Internet’s new remote desktop customer support services instead of going the old route? With its exceptional safety, ease of use, and reliability, it marks the future of customer service.

Blog · Domain · Hosting · Support · 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

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

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

This March saw the 25^th anniversary of dotcom domain name. Since its launch millions of domain names and website have come and gone. The price of registering domains too has dropped from £100’s to under a few pounds.

We thought it might be interesting to look at the 10 most expensive domains and consider whether a domain name could still make you a few pounds!

Surprisingly, it took a little while before people started to think about domain names as something that could bring you real money. In fact, it was as late as 1999 that business.com exchanged hands for $7.5m. And a further 7 years later (2006) that Gary Kremen sold sex.com for around $14m.

And that was surpassed very recently (2009) by insure.com, selling for a staggering $16m. So without further suspense, here are the top 10 most expensive domain names:

1. Insure.com, $16m (2009)
2. Sex.com, $14m (2006)
3. Fund.com, $9.99m (2008)
4. Porn.com, $9.5m (2007)
5. Business.com, $7.5m (1999)
6. Diamond.com, $7.5m (2006)
7. Beer.com, $7m (2004)
8. Israel.com, $5.88m (2004)
9. Casino.com, $5.5m (2003)
10. Toys.com, $5.1m (2009)

Clearly, there is money to be made in domain names. And now with many UK web hosting companies offering domains names from as little as £2.99 (as well as free domain names with web hosting packages) you could try your luck on the cheap.

Back to the top 10 – no.8 seems most interesting. Can you buy country names? Hmmm…please look away now…

…E. N. G. L. A. N. D. DOT. C.O.M.

Domain · domain name · Free domain name · Top 10 domain names · Web Hosting

The online fashion retailer ASOS recently posted a 35% increase in sales for the financial year ending March 2010. This at a time when the UK and most of the rest of the world has struggled through the recession and when the UK economy is still somewhat reluctant to show any real appetite for growth.

What’s more, ASOS’s success comes at a time when many of its competitors including household brands such as Next, French Connection and M&S are still facing difficult trading conditions.

So what’s the secret of success for ASOS?

Well, it has a great product offering at exceptional prices. Critically, it has a ‘store on every town / city’. That is to say, it is a pure online retailer with a global presence. In fact, ASOS has achieved a market cap of over £450m since its launch in 2000.

A lot of this success has been apportioned to the company’s pure online status. As well as a lower barrier to entry, the internet allows companies to be a lot cleverer and effective with their marketing.

Selling online

Now, while we don’t suggest that getting your business online will turn you into an instant multi-million pound business, what we are saying is that achieving online success is not the preserve of corporates with large budgets.

In fact, with easy access to web hosting services in the UK, selling your products / services online is far easier and quicker than you might think.

Keep it simple – use ecommerce templates

Rather than investing significant amounts in bespoke web development, you can start selling online using a simple ecommerce template costing around £100 per year, available from most UK web hosting companies. What’s more, most web hosts will throw in a free domain name too.

Most ecommerce templates also come with free web hosting – at least that’s the case with most UK web hosting companies. Importantly, as the name suggests, ecommerce templates are designed for people with little or no knowledge of actually building websites allowing you to start selling online while keeping costs of creating an ecommerce website to a minimum.

So start selling online the easy way with ecommerce templates. And remember to ask your web host for free web hosting and free domain name. Good luck!

Domain · domain name · Ecommerce · Hosting · UK web hosting · website template

Let me start by apologising for, quite possibly, abusing the privileges of writing this blog by throwing in an obvious plug.

But in an extremely competitive UK web hosting industry, it is seldom that one comes across a genuinely good offer specifically designed to save small businesses a great deal of money on web hosting.

You see, over the last few months, our product development team has been busy in the lab with their beakers, bunsen burners, goggles and chemicals and come up with what they call the Ultimate Hosting package.

And despite the seemingly lofty name, it does live up to its implied promise. Here are just some of the key features:

• 5 domain names worth up to £39.95 (all for free and you can choose from the most popular extensions, including .co.uk, .com, .org, .net, .biz, .info, .me.uk, .org.uk, & .eu names)
• free dedicated SSL Certificate worth £49/y for your site security
• free Data Backup & Restore facility worth £36/y
• free Website Builder tool
• unlimited bandwidth
• 5 databases – MySQL or MS SQL.

And to make it really flexible, you don’t have to register all 5 names at point of purchase – you can do so at anytime. In fact, you can even transfer in domain names to this hosting package from other providers.

But what’s really compelling is that the Ultimate Hosting package has been priced at just £4.99/m – a lot cheaper than most standard hosting packages. (I am not sure whether product development chaps had a chat with the bean counters before deciding on the price – I can feel a pay cut coming on to foot the bill for marketing!)

Domain · domain name · UK web hosting · Ultimate Hosting · Web Hosting

In our previous blog, we looked at some of the key points to keep in mind when choosing a domain name and considered pros and cons of opting for generic or abstract domain name.

However, whether you opt for the former or latter type of domain name, the challenge remains the same – to cut through the clutter of thousands of marketing messages all of us simply ignore every day and etch your domain name on your customers’ minds.

So, here’s our quick and simple guide to choosing the best domain name for your business:

1. Make it memorable

We don’t all have memory of an elephant! Make it memorable and you may just get your potential customers to find you rather than your competitors.

2. Make it short

In fact, the shorter, the better. Partly it helps with memorising and party it reduces the chances of misspelling or mistyping.

3. Make it simple

Try not to mix letters and numbers and the tired 2 (for ‘to’) and 4 (for ‘for’).

4. Make it suggestive

Without becoming part of the clutter (see previous blog), try a name that suggests the nature of your business.

5. Make it hard to misspell

Let’s face it, ever since Mr. Gates gave us the spellchecker at a click, the nation’s spelling ability hasn’t quite improved with our knowledge of all things Internet!

Finally, remember, most of the good names are already taken. So, don’t worry if your chosen name is already gone. Stick at it. Remember, how long it took to perfect your 30-seconds lift proposition for your business? A good domain name is your 1-second proposition. It may take more than a few seconds to get it right! Good luck!

Domain · domain name · url · web address · web site address · web site name

Not only does a domain name help your potential customers find your business on the Internet, it could also define your business in a word or two. In fact, a good domain could well be your best asset. And in some cases, it could be the difference between success and failure.

So what is so special about a domain name?

Imagine walking down your local high street. Simply by looking at the shop signage and the window displays, you can tell a bank from a bar, a fashion store from a phone shop, a green grocer from a golf shop.

But on the Internet it’s an altogether different story. There are no visual signs or smells and sounds. There is no chap with the ‘golf sale’ pointing you to a new set of golf clubs!

On the Internet, your potential customers have no way of knowing what you have to offer until they get there. But getting there may not be that easy. I mean, when they started out, would you have known Dell.com sells computers or Amazon.com is not a tourist guide to an increasingly less lush region in South America?

Unless you have backers with deep pockets and the marketing budget of a blue chip company, you might want a domain name that’s both memorable and suggests what your business is about. In an instant.

What’s the best route to a successful domain name?

Broadly speaking, you have two choices – generic or abstract/real names.

Generic names provide instant clues to your business. For example, you could guess AskJeeves.com is a search engine, smallbusiness.co.uk is all about small businesses and startups.co.uk might be useful if you were setting up a new business.

In fact, some generic names have attracted premium prices at the height of the dot com bubble. Business.com was bought by a Californian-based company for $8m, Compaq paid over $3m for AltaVista and Sex.com still remains the most expensive name having exchanged hands for a staggering $12m.

Clearly, a good name commands attention in more than one way.

But there is a problem with generic names. While they may imply the nature of your business to your potential customers, there is a danger of getting lost in the clutter too. For example, try typing ‘small business’ into a search engine and here’s a sample of just some of the websites you are presented with:

www.SmallBusinessEssentials.co.uk

www.smallbusinessadvice.org.uk

www.businesslink.gov.uk

www.clearlybusiness.com

www.smallbizpod.co.uk

www.smallbusiness.co.uk

www.mybusiness.co.uk

How do you stand out in this crowd?

Well, you may want to look at more abstract or real names. Yahoo, Amazon, tesco.com, waterstones.com are some great examples. Of course, these companies have spent a penny or two on their branding for the last year or two, or decades!

And that could be the disadvantage with abstract or real names if you are a new company – the cost of building the brand name. A clever name by itself may not be sufficient. It requires considerable marketing resource to make it stand out and to make the name synonymous with the nature of your business. A little bit of clever marketing, however, may compensate for a lack of a marketing budget.

In our next blog, we look at 5 key points to consider when choosing your domain name.

Domain · domain name · url · web address · web site address · web site name