Marketing Your Business Online

At DomainDjinn.com there are 3 Standard hosting plans that start as little as 3.99/mo and 3 Dedicated Server hosting plans which start at 109/mo. 

Dedicated server hosting is perfect for eCommerce, multimedia, gaming and other sites that need advanced performance, reliability and control. You can choose from pre-designed Windows 2008 and Linux plans featuring multi-core processors, enhanced options like managed backups and much more or you can customize a server to fit your specific needs.

The virtual hosting plan is a shared envirionment which allows for lower overall costs for the owner.  The economy plan starts at 10 gigs of hard disk space and 300 gig of internet transfer.  It includes 10 sql databases and up to 100 email accoungs.  There are about 50 free add on applications that you can easily install and integrate into your website with a click of a button.  These applications include Blogs, message boards and forums, social networking, Wiki’s, Photo and file gallery’s, content management and ecommerce solutions. 

For most new company websites, the Economy package is a great place to start.  The Economy plan can easily be converted into the unlimited plan which runs at only $14.99/mo which sports unlimited hard disk space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited my sql databases and 1000 email accounts. 

The virtual Host can also allow you to have your own dedicated IP address should you want one dedicated to your site.  A dedicated IP address can be useful to nearly any company should you want to build a reputation around your own IP range.  The cost is only $4.75/mo more for that added benefit.

Another consideration is the platform you want to run on.  MS Windows or Linux.  Linux is great, fast and very powerful.  However MS Windows is compatible with Microsoft Frontpage plug-ins and Microsoft SQL.  If you are working with a web designer you should find out what their preference is before setting up your hosting platform.  However, it is easy to change to another platform once you have set up a hosting plan from within the control panel.

I generally recommend the dedicated hosting option to large established corporations with dedicated IP address ranges.  You can customize the server and access the server directly.  The server can dedicate all of its processing power to your application.  You still get 24/7 support, superior backup and all the features that the virtual hosting has, but you get the added flexibility of being able to customize your server as you like it.  You may want special server side configurations that are not available in a virtual environment.   Or, you may want to put dual quad core processors in a box with raid 10 configurations to get the most extreme uptime available.  You can do it all with dedicated hosting.

I have thought much about this since our lowest offer is $1.99 for domains along with a hosting or other package.  Specifically I am referring to the former AOL package.  Although they don’t offer domains for free any more, this is really the only free domain offer I really trusted to some extent, primarily because the domain company was AOL–a fairly trustworthy company. 

So, they offered the domain which you could use to host a website, email, etc.  However, it didn’t seem as if you could easily transfer service to another domain host.  It seemed as if AOL would be the defacto owner of the domain and you were sort of renter of their service even though they didn’t charge anything. 

Was it a scam?  In AOL’s case, No, I don’t think so.  However I could see several instances where true ownership of the domain would be far preferable to avoiding under 10 bucks a year that it costs to own a typical domain. 

What if you wanted to sell the domain property?  Since AOL really owns the domain, this would be impossible unless you could wrench it away from them. 

What if the AOL hosting company didn’t offer you what you needed in terms of a web host?  Again, you are locked in unless you could get them to point your A record somewhere else (for example, domaindjinn.com ). 

What if AOL stopped servicing your domain and let it lapse into the internet universe.  Could you lose your name that you spent so much time developing? 

This is not to say that AOL is a bad company at all.  I like AOL, and use their services for many things.  I actually am upset that the free Antivirus offer they used to make available is gone.  But I am in the domain name business.  And in my experience it is better to have the power than relinquish it to another party. 

All in all, I feel that owning your own domain property is far superior to getting something for free.  You get what you pay for after all.  Since most domains are going for $8.75, it makes total sense to own it.  Almost anyone can make $8.75 selling nearly anything, from slippers to books on making sand castles. 

Secure Sockets Layer Certificates assist in making sites more secure and valid for sales online.  Most sophisticated internet users are keenly aware to NEVER buy through a website that DOESN’T USE SSL.

But what about the unsophisticated users?  Well, many newbie surfers may not be aware of the little secure icons, but newer browsers and antivirus programs are, and may prompt the user to NOT give information to an unsecure website. 

So, how do you incorporate SSL?  It is fairly easy for most webdesigners.  If you don’t use DomainDjinn to assist you with the task, check out an inexpensive coder from Elance. 

The cost on an SSL certificate starts at only $27.99/yr.  That is a no-brainer for any business owner.  However if you plan to have many subdomains, you should go for the $199/yr Unlimited Subdomains option.  There are also multiple domain ssl options if you have several websites. 

Here is the bottom line: You spend alot of money and time to get traffic to your website.  Don’t give a customer an excuse to turn away.  Secure your website today with low cost SSL from Domaindjinn.com

http://www.securepaynet.net/gdshop/ssl/ssl.asp?ci=1789&prog_id=ccardillo

A federal jury in Califormia handed down a verdict against 2 web hosting companies (Akanoc Solutions Inc., Managed Solutions Group Inc.,)  holding the owners liable for the copyright and trademark infringement of one of it’s customers selling counterfit Louis Vuitton goods.  Andy Coombs, Louis Vuitton’s counsel, said in a statement. “It represents a positive contribution to existing case law and marks the first time statutory damages have been awarded against those found contributorily liable for trademark infringement.”

This is a precedent setting case which may cause Web Hosting Providers to start enforcing more stringent acceptable use policies for customers.

Trademark is a tricky legal business.  Trademark owners must fight to protect its trademark when it becomes aware of a trademark infringement, or else there may be a possibility to lose the effectiveness of the trademark itself.

For example, if a business owner is aware of an infringement and waits several years and then targets another account of infringement, the defense can argue that they haven’t gone after other infringements.  In the past Microsoft has been chastised for going after Mike Rowe’s MikeRoweSoft.com website.  However, they are legally in a bind, and MUST go after an infringement whenever it becomes aware of it, however badly they may have handled that particular circumstance.

In this new ruling however, Louis Vuitton is not just going after the infringer, but also those that may have contributed unknowingly to the infringement.  This may make things difficult for existing trademark owners who will likely need to consider contributors to trademark infringement as part of the legal proceedings.  Not to do so, can be problemmatic for them in presenting future cases. 

Should a phone company be sued if it doesn’t start policing the companies that use its phone lines for criminal purposes?  What about Internet Service providers who provide service that hackers may use?  This case opens up alot of questions that should make any company that provides a service to take pause and look at the customers it serves.  Can a bad client be a bigger risk than you realize?

ICANN and others are working to improve Expiration policies surrounding domain names that expire. 

Do you think that there is enough opportunity for registrants to redeem your expired domain?

Do you think there is enough notice of upcoming expiration?

Should there be other options other than Auto Renew?

Is the grace period handled properly?  

What are your thoughts?

http://www.twitterlocal.net/ is an Adobe Air developed product that allows you to search for location on Twitter.  So, let’s say you look for Miami, FL, you will be able to see recent tweets that are local to that region.  This is a great way to build an audience or a list of friendships in a particular niche location in the country.

If you don’t have Adobe Air, you can download it for free at http://adobe.com and then you can go to http://www.twitterlocal.net/ and download their application in order to Twitter locally. 

The big difference here is the source of the tweet.  If you did a search on twitter for a location anybody can write a tweet with a location in it.  They may be located in Texas, Nebraska or Canada for all you know.  Twitter Local changes that and allows you to focus only on tweets originating from the physical location that you are targeting. 

I give this app 4 stars out of 5.  ****   In certain circumstances this application is very useful.

Google’s new Caffeine search infrastructure is built atop a complete overhaul of the Google File System.  The new file system is codenamed GFS2 and has taken 2 years to complete.  Google Caffeine is really just Google.com, only faster.  In tests Caffeine is producing results around 2 times faster than the original Google.com.  Of course with so much hubbub around Microsoft’s partnership with Yahoo and recently Microsoft’s release of Bing, people are expecting Google to come out with something new. 

However, Google seems to be content with just making their product better.  If you notice when you do a Google.com search the results come back with a time stamp for how long the results take.  This is what Caffeine does, but only the results appear faster.  Really nobody has an infrastructure as fast as Google.  So, Google is really competing against itself.  And we are glad that they are.  It means faster searching for all of us, and less time sitting around waiting for results. 

Twitter is starting to do a clean-up of the spam accounts.  So, you will likely see some drop in total # of followers soon, if not already.  Here is the official statement:

“For some time, the follower and following counts we display have been incorrect for some folks. We’re soon to push a change that will address this issue. This means that the count you see in your sidebar should match what you see on your follower and following pages.”

However, a consequence of this change is that follower counts will drop for some people. In particular, those with large followings may see significant changes as we correct for spam accounts and data inconsistencies. No legitimate followings should be affected—we’re just cleaning up artifacts in the system.

It is probably one of the hottest ways to draw attention to your product or website today.  Video clips.  You can easily create a short video on your product using Camtasia or some other inexpensive video editing software.  There are YouTube enabled video cameras that you can buy from Best Buy or some other store very easily and cheaply.  These cameras cut your video into the exact YouTube video length and film at the exact resolution that YouTube demands.  Plug in, upload and you are done.

If you decide to make a long series of videos you may even want to automate the process with either Traffic Geyser or Tube Mogul.  These software packages can be expensive, so doing it by hand is still an option.

Besides YouTube, consider adding your videos to these websites:

You are only as successful as your network.

I want to let that sink in…

Your network consists of contacts you have made and that you can call upon for help, guidance, and even as customers.  The most powerful networkers know that it is imperative to continue to grow the network and to get outside the comfort zone.

How does a network help success?

1.  Everybody is selling something.  If you are a lawyer you are selling services.  If you are a website owner you are probably selling products.  If you are an employee you are selling your time.  No matter what you are selling, by knowing more people you have an opportunity to advance your career through the leverage of these contacts.

2.  Word of mouth is very powerful.  Let’s say you need a referral to get into a new business, you can call on your network to help you out.  Let’s say there is a friend of a network member who needs a service or product you sell, who do you think he/she will refer them to?  If you want to get advancement in your career or even change careers, your prospects improve greatly if you know all the players in your field and they are part of your network.  Any new opportunities are bound to come to you first.

You know how people grumble and say “the old boy’s network” or “it is not what you know it’s who you know.”  These are true.  But the truth is that anybody can be part of the network.

How do you join a network?

Join groups.  Join clubs.  Ask around and try to join the same groups that the people you admire are a part of.  Some resumes may exist online and you can see what associations are the best to belong to.  Some organizations exist for networking purposes, such as BNI.  However, no matter what network you join, be prepared to pay some membership fees.  You may have to work at it for awhile until you find the exact membership groups that really give you the success and power you are looking for.  Some groups will be useless.  Drop them.  But don’t drop the people you meet.  Try to bring them into your new circles of influence.

If a club or association doesn’t exist for what you are trying to target, create your own group.  This instantly makes you the leader and expert.  Then go around and find members to join.  Make the group free, informative, useful and enjoyable.  You will get more out of it than you can imagine.