Domain Names & Hosting (Parking Managers)

Greetings Fellow Citizens!
In this day and age it's pretty hard to keep up with technology, but we do have to at least try, right? Does everyone know what it takes to run a website?

Running a website is a residual thing. There are two areas of thought here. One is hosting, which is a parking manager, and the other is domain registration, which is your parking spot's name.

A company will charge you (on a monthly or yearly basis) to park your website on their server. So think of hosting as your parking manager. Pretend your website is a car. You need a place to park your car, and there are some of us out there that are lucky enough to have free parking, but for the most part we all have to pay in some way to park our cars. Now apply that knowledge to hosting your website.

There are a ton of hosting companies out there, and often I get asked what's the best one or what package is right for my site. Honestly, I am hooked on Ihoststudio.com. they are professional, always on-line and reliable, so in other words they always have parking spots available in the shade, but close to the elevator. Now they don't pay me to post on my blog about them, so no brownie points for sharing my opinion, but knowledge is nothing without sharing it with others.

Now as far as which package suits you, well that is based on how big of a parking spot you want. Do you have a 24 seat van that takes up three spaces, or do you have a mini coupe that only takes up 1/2 a space? It depends on how big your site is going to be as to which package will suit you best. Most people get away with the bare minimum of packages, which will run you on average $15-$20 a month, but there are tons of other options for shopping carts, ezine management, and hoards of other stuff.

What about the domain registration you ask? Domain registration is your website's (or parking space if you will) name. It could be from employeeofthemonth.com to geeksrus.com and everything in between. This is what people will type in the URL of a browser to get to your site. Like mine for instance is www.mistylinc.com, that's my domain name. Most companies (I use Ihoststudio) charge from $7 to $40 a year for domain registration. Most will offer some phishing software to go along with your domain and I highly recommend you buy it. It keeps the predators off your site. Tips for choosing a domain name:

• Stick to .com instead of .net or even .org. People are stuck on .com and if you have to tell them .net then they won't remember you site..
• Choose something short, sweet, and simple.
• Acronyms work great, but stay away from abbreviated words as everyone abbreviates differently and you will have to explain yourself a lot.
• It doesn't have to be your company's name, but it is preferred.
• If you have spent enough time branding then your name will be unique enough to find the domain name you want.
• Domains.com will give you other options to choose from, sort of like synonyms for your first choice.

Now go out there and sign up for your electronic parking spot! In other words, your website!

Peacefully yours,
Misty