Important Questions
Tips and Advice for Company Websites

Who owns your website? Who owns your domain? How is your money being spent when it comes to websites? Is it an investment in the future of your business? Is it just a marketing expense? What are your costs? Are you spending money to get traffic? Who is managing your Internet Marketing Program? Is it being done by one person or one company? Do you have access to everything or is it being held hostage by someone else?

Domain Name Ownership

The most important part of your Internet Marketing Program is the domain and who owns it. Is it in your name? Where is it registered? Do you have access to the login account? Can you get in and move the domain hosting if you have to do it quickly? How bad would it be to lose control of the domain and see a competitor’s info show up on your domain? Is it set to renew correctly? Imagine the nightmare of losing your domain, because someone forgot to maintain the correct billing information.

How Much Do Domains Cost?

As of today – May 16th, 2013 – GoDaddy is selling (.com) domains for $12.99/year. The cost can range anywhere from FREE to $40 per year if you contract direct with the company that provides registration. Its possible that your webmaster is handling this for you.. the cost they charge varies depending on what other services they are providing.
Is the domain yours or does it belong to the webmaster company that provides service to you?  Do a search on DomainTools and see what comes up under registrant info.Is it your name or your webmasters name? If it is your webmaster.. be sure you have a good relationship with them – they currently own your domain.
Be careful with FREE Domains – Normally this FREE domain is wrapped up in Hosting or some other service! Getting control of these domains (should you decide to leave the service or company you got them through) is often difficult.  Also BE Cautious buying your domain through a FREE Hosting service – Just ask all the people that went through the recent nightmare of the Microsoft OfficeLive Product going away.  Free hosting options like wordpress.com and blogger.com have their benefits – make sure you are in the position to move the website and domain if you outgrow that service or need more features than what the FREE hosting offers.

Website Hosting Options

You need to decide where your site is going to be hosted. Is it on shared hosting environment with a webmaster’s other sites that could hurt your marketing efforts? Is it in an account that provides you direct access or does your webmaster hold all the account login info hostage? Is it being protected from spammers and hackers? What happens when it goes down? Do you have to rely on a person or can you call the company direct?

Internet Marketing

Okay, once your website is live, is it able to be found? Are people finding it? Is it in the search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing? Where does it rank for the major keywords in your industry? Has your site been built with search engine consideration?

When someone performs a search to google your company name? Do you like what you see?

Website Consultations

Do you have questions about your website? or website marketing campaign? Are you not sure how to answer the questions on this page? You made need to schedule a website consultation with someone that knows what the answers are or can help you find the answers to your questions. Some companies provide FREE consultations – Some charge minimal amounts. Ask as many questions as you can before you decide to pay someone for advice.
Contact the Webguy for More Questions or to set-up a website consultation.