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Hosting Email and Web Site
| If you do not already have a hosting account, you will need one, so get one set up now. You need this to get a professional looking email with your company name (ie. info@bluelotusprod.com), your own Web site, and the ability to host your client sites or other sites when needed. I like using iPower for hosting because they allow you to get a free domain name (though I usually do not get an "important" domain name through this free offer because I like having all my important domain names in one place and over the years you will acquire several that all need to be renewed at different times). In addition, they also allow you to host as many sites as you want there - my hosting account has over 100 sites on it from all my various projects, sites I have made for friends that are sitting on my server, as well as pro-bono sites my company has made that I have up. http://www.saleslandingpages.com/ipower/ Go through the process of getting a host and use the free domain offer to register a domain for a friend or for yourself (ie. YourName.com). Again, do not let them upsell you - you should be spending about $45 for a year's worth of hosting. You have a business name and address, so use that information on your host. For phone number, make sure that you are able to answer your business calls if you use your business phone because sometimes iPower will call you to verify your order before setting it up. Use your business gmail address for your email ... as a practice, use your business information for everything that is related to your business - try not to intermingle your personal contact information and your business information - believe me, this will avoid a lot of insanity in the future as you start getting busy with your business - your home should be your sanctuary, not another satellite location for your business - even if you do work from home, as do I, it should be done in a controlled manner so you can be at "home" when you choose to. Once your host is set up, here is what you need to do: 1 - Call GoDaddy at the number that is on the home page of their Web site and tell them that you need to change the nameservers on your account. They will need your account number so have that on hand before you call. They will walk you through step-by-step how to do this - if you used iPower for your host as I suggested, following is what you need to change the nameservers to: ns1.ipower.com ns2.ipower.com Prior to doing this, when you go to your domain name that you registered, you will see a GoDaddy "parked page" and once this step is completed, if you are using iPower, you will see a white page that says there is nothing uploaded. It can take up to 72 hours for this change to be "seen". Once you see that blank white page, now call iPower technical support at the phone number that is on their Web site, and have your account name on hand and ask them to walk you through setting up your domain on your server. Tell them that the nameservers have already been changed and "propagated" and you just need help mapping it on your server. Also tell them that you want this domain to be your "home" domain, not the free one you registered and have them walk you through setting this up as your main domain. Once this is done, you are ready to set up a Web site. This is very easy to do - if you do not want to go through the struggles of setting it up yourself, I have a Web app that I created that will create a nice site for you to get your business off the ground in just a few minutes: http://www.warriorplus.com/w/v/f45scr/blue This site is desgined for an offline business, but it can be easily customized to be for a publishing business and there is a Fiverr Gig that will do that for you as well once you get the basic information in. This is a great way to get a site up within 15 minutes or so. On the footer of the app, there is a PDF that will walk you through "uploading" your site to your server. Once you go through all these steps, you should be able to go to your domain name and see a nice Web site! The other thing that you will need to do on your Web server is set up an email address with your domain name. I would set up info@ whatever your domain name is. Call iPower and have them help you set this up. You would want this address to be set up as a "POP" account but have a copy of all emails in this box be forwarded to that gmail account you set up so that you can access it easily. You will also need to go through these steps so that you can send outgoing email with your new professional email address: http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=22370 (Click on the link that says: I'm a Gmail or Google Apps user sending from an external address.) Wherever you are going to be sending email from, set up a signature file that has your company's information - if you are using Gmail, as I suggested, here is how you set up a signature file: http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=8395 Here is the signature that I use for my business: Blue Lotus Productions, Inc. 112 1/2 South Spring Street, Suite 7 Beaver Dam, WI 53916 920-887-2000 Basically, just have your business name and address information - or if you want to get fancy, you can add a slogan or make a deviation from above to fit your style 
Source: Content Machine | |
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