“What is a domain name?”

- (www.SmallBusinessFire.com – a .COM domain name)
A domain name is a name that you reg­is­ter with a domain name reg­is­tar com­pany (nor­mally for a yearly fee). A domain name is the URL or Uniform Resource Locator, which you type into the address bar within your browser (ex. Internet Explorer or Mozilla FireFox). The domain name that you choose is not per­ma­nent and you can change who your reg­is­tar is at any time after 60 days. The domain name will become the infor­ma­tion that will allow inter­net browsers to retrieve your web­site from your web­site host.

“What is a host?”

- A host is a com­pany who works like a giant infor­ma­tion stor­age facil­ity for web­sites. A web­site host­ing ser­vice allows you to store all of your web­site infor­ma­tion on one of their servers and allows peo­ple to view it using your unique domain name.

“Free host­ing?”

- Yes the inter­net does pro­vide com­pletely free host­ing – with ads. The ads really are not that bad when it comes to most free online web host­ing ser­vices. Yet there are still 3 major things you should be aware of before you decide to use one of the free host­ing services:

1. Most free web host­ing ser­vices have strict non-commercial use only policies

2. You nor­mally do not have the option to use your own .COM domain name

   (some now offer the abil­ity to re-delegate your domain to their ser­vice or reg­is­ter one thru their com­pany. But be aware that if you ever would like to move your web­site to a paid host­ing service….it is often very dif­fi­cult to get your .COM domain trans­ferred to your new service.)

3. Google DOES NOT favor web­sites hosted via free web host­ing services.

   (I would have to say that this is due to the lack of options you nor­mally have when it comes to the over­all SEO tweaks that go into get­ting your site noticed by search engines. Others would add to it by say­ing that Google just doesn’t like them because it’s free.)

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Note: Paid host­ing costs are min­i­mal; you can pay per month, per year, or in some cases per mul­ti­ple years. I would rec­om­mend Godaddy and Hostgator, they both offer some of the most reli­able web host­ing ser­vices and they both offer their ser­vices for low prices that really help save small busi­nesses money, while build­ing their online presence.

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With all of that being said, I would like to make it per­fectly clear to every­one that I am NOT against free web host­ing.
I just believe there is a time and place for this method of host­ing to be utilized.

For exam­ple, many SEO/Internet Marketing tech­niques, strate­gies, and skills exist that require the usage of many dif­fer­ent free web­host­ing ser­vices. One of the most effec­tive SEO or Internet Marketing “secret skills”, that is used in order to rank a web site high in the organic search engine results (back link­ing), relies about 70% on the use of free blog­ging and web­host­ing services.

When it comes to cre­at­ing your cen­ter piece (web­site) for your online pres­ence, I would highly rec­om­mend look­ing into an inex­pen­sive web host­ing ser­vice that also offers domain reg­is­tra­tion (GoDaddy.com). Doing so will not only help you avoid many prob­lems and road bumps that you can encounter using other meth­ods, but it also ensures that you are effec­tively build­ing a solid online pres­ence for your Small Business.

Travis Gutierrez
Phoenix Small Business Solutions
Owner/Small Business Solutions Specialist