Domains and Hosting Accounts

For your website to gain a competitive edge upon the internet, there are a number of domain and hosting essentials that you must be aware of, including choosing the right Domain Address and Hosting Account, as these will be the first "brownie points" that search engines will apply to the placement and ranking of your website.

Purchasing Domain Addresses

All websites require a Domain Address, e.g. http://www.splash.net.au/, or http://www.flairwebdesign.com.au/.

This is how people find your website upon the internet. This extract discusses the different types of Domain Addresses available and how to choose one that will work well for your Marketing Website.

Sub Domains

When you sign up for an Australian dial up or broadband account (e.g. Bigpond, Westnet or Dodo) there is usually an opportunity to put up a free website using a sub-domain. Sub-domains are also attainable from other organisations like Google, Yahoo and MSN.

If we hosted the Splash Website on say a DoDo sub-domain, our website address would probably be something like: http://www.dodo.net.au/~splash

The Splash Website domain address is http://www.splash.net.au. Apart from being easier to remember, and looking more professional to a visitor, Domain sites are given a higher priority and a better "ranking" than sub-domains by Search Engines.

The Simply The Best at Internet Marketing Program was placed into a separate folder within our hosting account named internet marketing, we were then able to turn it into a private subdomain, which we have called www.internetmarketing.splash.net.au, (which you may see in your browser above) although this program is actually located at www.splash.net.au/internetmarketing.

This is a highly useful technique, if your normal website address does not contain any important keywords and you want to take advantage of the brownie points offered to domain addresses.

Choosing A Domain Name Is Like Choosing A Business Name

Domain names that accurately describe your business name and activities will serve you the best on the Internet. If you can include your main keywords or key phrases in your domain name even better, as the search engines now use your domain address keywords to boost (or lower) your ranking points.

For example a domain name for Power Internet Marketing could be any of the following:

It is suggested by some SEO specialists, that search engines give preference to domain addresses without additional characters like hyphens, but I think they are more likely to be a confusion to visitors with sites that don't e.g.:

There are two types of Domain Addresses - A Local Domain or International Domain

A Local Domain Address Pertains To A Country

A Local Domain Address is important if you are marketing to your own country, and want your website found on Local Search Engines, e.g. Google Australia Yahoo Australia Web Wombat

A Local Domain Address is normally purchased and hosted in the country of origin, and is the one that has the extra two letters at the end, e.g.

To purchase an Australian Domain address you must have a BN, ACN or ABN. It is recommended (though not required by law) to register an organisation name of the same wording prior to purchasing a Local Domain Address in the event that your name is trademarked or patented by another organisation and you are challenged for the domain address. In Australia you will now pay between $20 and $120 per annum for an Australian Domain Name.

An International Domain Address which does not have the extra two letters, is important if you wish to promote your website on international search engines e.g.

International Domain Addresses were originally synonymous with the USA, but are now available to anybody in the world.

Does it matter if I have a .net .org or .com Domain Address?

Yes it does, although some will tell you otherwise, as they are easy enough to purchase.  The following is how they would rank in importance if competing against each other , and the original intended use of domain extensions:

A .com is synonymous with a Business Address,

A .net is traditionally for an Internet Service Provider and

A .org is for Not-For-Profit organisations

An International Domain will cost you around US$15-US$30 per annum, and can be easily sourced upon the Internet.

Lets now move to the next page which discusses deciding upon the content of your website.

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