Own Your Own Domain Name and Website!

What Every Small Business Owner Should Know

If you own a business make sure you own your domain name and your website.

There are a lot of advertisements for websites that are billed by the month. Many online site builders and yellow page companies claim that you can have a professional looking site for as low as $19 a month.  Of course, once you sign up they try to sell you optimization programs which makes the price go up drastically. So you sign up thinking you are going to have a great, optimized website at affordable monthly payments. That is far from the truth. First of all, you do not own the site, you are renting it. From an SEO standpoint that is a big mistake. Every website builds quality score by simply being online and receiving traffic. If you do not own the site, you are building a quality score that will never benefit you. Because the moment you stop your monthly program, your site will be gone.

You own your own business, why would you rent your site?

So here is a good advice for every business owner. Buy your domain name yourself…. do not go through a middle-man. Simply go online and purchase it. Register it under your name and make sure that it is registered for a long time (min 5 years). Next step is to find a developer that will build you your own website. Make sure it represents your business properly. The difference between a good user experience and a bad one is your site. If users can find information about you and your services easily, they will stay on your site longer which will help with your quality score, your conversions and will result in profits for your business. Once your site is finished, purchase your own hosting. Have the developer move your site to your hosting account and have him/her setup domain based e-mail addresses for your business (stop using hotmail or gmail addresses on your site).

Now you own your site and your domain name –  just like you own your own business!