Online Marketers

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How to use online portals to promote your start-up, from article marketing, pay per click, Facebook, Twitter and other social media and online channels.

Location: Gainesville Florida
Members: 15
Latest Activity: Dec 22, 2011

Tips for Developing an Online Presence for Your Business or Start - up

Developing an online presence for your business or start up involves more than just having a website. That is simply the first and easiest part. Once this is accomplished, you need to develop an online strategy that will get your site noticed by the search engines so that your target market finds you when they start looking online.

So, you want to get yourself a website. You don't have to spend a ton of money on this part. It’s fairly simple and affordable to get a domain name (approximately $10 a year) and then purchase a hosting account.

My first tip on setting this all up is to not use Go Daddy for your domain name. It’s the most recognizable name in hosting, mainly because of Danika Patrick but that doesn’t mean they’re good. (For all the reasons why they’re not good, check out http://www.nodaddy.com)

There are plenty of affordable domain name providers out there. One I recommend is namecheap.com , mainly because I like their billing policy and they're easy to use.

Second, don’t use your domain name company for your hosting company. If , for whatever reason, you decide to use another hosting company later on, it can be really hard to extricate yourself from the domain name company. Believe me, I know. My blog was down for almost 2 months because my domain name provider would not release hosting to me. I had to register a complaint with ICANN before it finally got resolved.

Once you get your domain name and hosting sorted out, the easiest way to get a website up is to use a blogging platform. This makes it easy to create content, upload videos, photos, etc without having to know any code!

I use Wordpress but there are others, like Tumblr, TypePad, Joomla, Drupal, etc. I use Wordpress because you can find a lot of free resources to support it like themes and cool plug-ins.

My last tip: don’t confuse Wordpress.com with a privately-hosted Wordpress blog. You could easily set up a blog using the public Wordpress but you won’t own it. You could invest a lot of time in building content for your blog and then one day, Wordpress yanks it down because they don’t like what you’re saying or simply don’t like your blog. If you own it, you control it.

More tips to come on setting up your online presence. In the meantime, feel free to post any comments or questions. (I think you need to join the group first. ;-)

Discussion Forum

Get Educated, and then Outsource

Continuing the thread, but expanding on what Eunice is commenting on Domains and Hosting: Get educated, and then outsource. If you are a small business, you should respectfully concentrate on what…Continue

Started by Anne Maria Bello Jan 23, 2011.

Why You Want to Keep Domain Name Registrar and Hosting Company Separate

The following comment from Anna Maria Bello in another thread sparked the opening of this discussion: I just want to comment on having your domain name company as your hosting company. Not ALL…Continue

Tags: registration, business, website, name, domain

Started by Eunice Coughlin Jan 23, 2011.

How to Create Content for Your Blog that Transforms Followers into Customers

What type of content should you write about on your business blog? Instead of focusing on topics that concern you or that you think your readers and followers should be concerned with, write about…Continue

Tags: ideas, for, WIIFM, research, keyword

Started by Eunice Coughlin Aug 4, 2010.

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Comment by Stephanie G. Travis on July 8, 2011 at 11:19pm: Top Six Things Marketers Need to Know About Google Plus I hope the marketing and advertising companies weigh in on Google Plus. It may fizz out like Buzz, but it's always nice to hear an expert's take on new social media.

Comment by Stephanie G. Travis on January 23, 2011 at 7:17pm: "Get Educated, and then Outsource" Great post! Outsource, yes! This includes bookkeeping!

Comment by Eunice Coughlin on January 23, 2011 at 9:45am: Thanks for the resource, Pat!

Comment by Eunice Coughlin on January 23, 2011 at 9:04am: Anna Maria,

I wholeheartedly agree with you about domain names and hosting companies. Keep them separate! This is such a pet peeve with me that I am going to open another discussion about it. I hope you'll share your thoughts,too. Everyone else is invited to throw their .02 in as well. :-)

Eunice

Comment by Stephanie G. Travis on January 23, 2011 at 8:20am: Thanks for the link Pat; I'm now following the blog.

Anne, great points. Just followed you on Twitter, btw. I am @onesourceacctng

Comment by Anne Maria Bello on January 23, 2011 at 8:14am: I just want to comment on having your domain name company as your hosting company. Not ALL companies are like that. Our transfer requests happen in 1 weeks time. I find that the Bigger companies - GoDaddy, Yellow Pages, etc, they are the ones that make you sign a contract, and give you a hard time to transfer. Pick carefully, and ask for references. Sometimes a small local company is the way to go. These big companies don't want to let go of your domains. Also, you want to be sure that you 1. Don't sign a contract with the domain company, and 2. Make sure you know when your domain expires. Names can not be transferred 90 days after purchase, which is standard procedure. Your Name should be listed as the owner, but if they have another e-mail address or address listed on the domain it is because, that bad companies try all the time to renew or transfer your domain, outside your choice, which is VERY confusing. Don't let the big guys get you ! Shop with a local, trusted source. (Bet you can find some right here)

Comment by Pat Klaus on January 23, 2011 at 4:55am: A wonderful resource for real time and current studies and statistics (as well as great design examples and advice) is

http://www.emailinstitute.com/newsletter/2011-01-21_EmailInstituteS...

Comment by Eunice Coughlin on January 22, 2011 at 7:04pm: I have some articles tucked away about this. Let me find them and I'll get back to you. But no, I don't think they are on the way out.

Comment by Stephanie G. Travis on January 22, 2011 at 5:32pm: Do you think email marketing is on its way "out?" Are people wanting less clutter in their email inboxes? Do they want to control when they see content - Twitter, FaceBook, Readers? Do you think there's a trend up/down in the success of email marketing? I haven't looked into any surveys or research on this. Anyone?