• Domain Selection – Broad selection of domain name choices including over 60 of the most popular extensions.
• Industry Leading Domain Services – Most advanced domain name search tools and services to help you get the domain name that you want include a proprietary alternative domain name generator, hundreds of thousands of premium resale domains listed a fixed price, a make an offer service for any domain name, and an expired domain name backorder solution.
• Advanced DNS platform – support of advanced DNS records such as SPF and TXT in addition to dynamic updates for DNS records that provides near real time propagation through the Internet.
• Longevity – Network Solutions is the oldest domain registrar & will be serving it’s customers long into the future.
• Reliability – The web hosting is reliable & your website won’t have ongoing issues with down time.
• Customer Service is award winning! Call Center is J.D. Powers Certified as “An Outstanding Customer Service Experience.”
• Innovative! Network Solutions is on the cutting edge for providing online customer service.

• Social Media Team – providing customer service on Twitter, Facebook & the web at large
  Voice of the Customer – submit your feedback
  IdeasArePower.com – a place to submit your ideas & vote on others

• Resources

MySolutionSpot.com offers resources & a community for sharing ideas

Fast facts about registering your domain name at Network Solutions:

• There is a charge per domain name to register it.
• The domain name is free with purchase of a hosting package for one year.
• There are additional discounts if you purchase hosting for a longer period of time

Suggestions for protecting your investment:

• When you register your domain name, make it a private registration to avoid spammers from finding your email address
• Use an email address that you actively use. This is how you’ll be notified when it’s time to renew your domain name.
• Make sure that your domain name is locked. This will prevent your domain from being transferred without your consent.
• To see a record of your domain name, go to www.networksolutions.com & use the WHOIS lookup in the bottom left corner. Enter your domain name & Search – it will show you:
• A complete record of your domain name
• Where it’s registered at & where it’s hosted at

What would you add to the list?

In the past the .pro extension was only available to doctors, lawyers, accountants & engineers. It was limited to the four countries of US, UK, Germany & Canada. ICANN lifted many restrictions. The .pro registry contacted us because many of our customers are small business owners. We felt that it was important to participate & have the .pro extensions available on Sept 8th when they were released worldwide. It was important to us to offer that same access to our customers.

The .pro domain extension is for business professionals that are licensed & have credentials. Anyone can buy a .com domain, but the .pro extensions will only be sold to licensed and credentialed business professionals. In addition, to professionals like doctors, lawyers, accountants, other service professionals such as plumbers, contractors, auto service centers, and beauty salons can register .PRO domains.

There will be a process of validating your business licensure after you have purchased the .pro domain. You will receive an email that will link you to the form where you will provide your licensure information. More information can be found here.

This morning I asked my followers on Twitter what they thought? Some thought that they should purchase some to protect their domain names.

Mark Carter of Thrivetime.com & www.NetworkingForACause.org immediately purchased some. He said,

“I immediately went to Network Solutions site and purchased .pro domain names. It’s important to protect your personal and professional brand online–which means owning more domain names than just “.com”.

If you don’t get the domains, someone else will so I always go out of my way to get them first!”

So check & see if your .pro domains are available & invest in your business’ future online.

This is the first part in a series on how you can put your business on the web & attract customers interested in your products & services. It’s an overview of the steps to take & I’ll cover a topic each day.

It’s like building a house & that’s the analogy that I’ll use. I’ll also include the many resources & products that Network Solutions offers to make it straightforward & customized to your needs.

1. Find a location for your house & an address – purchase a domain name

The best part about having a business online is that it’s relatively inexpensive to get started. It’s much more inexpensive to have a business online than in a physical location! I’ll take the guesswork out of choosing a domain name. Once you’ve decided on a domain name, Network Solutions makes purchasing it easy.

2. The foundation – hosting package

Every house needs solid footings to support the infrastructure. Network Solutions offers a number of options so that you’re able to start your online website off to a good start.

3. Building it – planning architecture & choosing the design

As with a house there are many ways to build a website. Network Solutions has options for every level. If you’d like to do it yourself you can no matter whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned programmer. And if you’re just too busy then Network Solutions has talented people that will do it for you!

4. Furnishing it –

content is very important

An empty house is of no interest to those that live there or are visitors. So it’s important to create information that’s of value & is relevant to your visitors. And if you keep adding more then it will give people a reason to keep returning to see what’s new.

5. Helping customers locate your house – SEO, keywords, & metatags

Once you get your house built it’s not of much value if people can’t find it. There are some straightforward things that can be done to help those searching find your site. Search engine optimization (generally abbreviated as SEO) sounds complicated but Network Solutions offers services to assist you with it. Keywords & metatags are also helpful to providing a more direct path to your site.

6. Doing business - ecommerce, paypal

It’s as easy as using a spare room for an office. Network Solutions has a number of options for setting up your site to allow people to purchase your products. They also have an in-depth article on selling online.

7. Inviting people to your house – marketing & networking

Once your website it set up & ready for business the last step is to get the word out. There are two parts to this. Network Solutions offers some great options for helping with marketing. And I’ll also give some tips on finding & networking with potential customers.

As you can see it’s relatively easy to get started. Start thinking about how you want people to find you online because that’s our first step!

This is an example of one received recently:

Dear Sir/Madam,

We are Beijing Erimart Network Service Co, Ltd which is the domain name register center in China. We received a formal application from a company who is applying to register” *customer’s domain* “as their domain name and Internet keyword on Jun 13, 2008. Because this involves your company name or trade mark so we inform you in no time. If you consider these domain names and internet keyword are important to you and it is necessary to protect them by registering them first, contact us soon.

It is scam & it has been going on for awhile. They are trying to get people to register the .cn or other asian domains.

Please be wary of these & contact Customer Service if you have questions:

Customer Service

In the U.S. and Canada call:

General Support – 1.888.642.9675

Technical Assistance – 1.866.391.HELP (1.866.391.4357)

Outside the U.S. call:

1.570.708.8788

My analogy references building a house so keeping with that where do you want to put it? Do you want it to be on a main thoroughfare seen by everyone? You definitely want to make it as easy as possible for everyone to find it rather than being on a quiet side street with little or no traffic.

The domain name will be the unique location for your site. There are two options for choosing a name:

1. Keyword based – these are words that are related to your business. The advantage is that Search Engines will notice them when people search. This works well in niches that are smaller. In broad areas such as automotive, reality & computer it will be more difficult to find unique names. A good example is Digital Photography School

2. Branding – Choose a name that is related to the brand of your business. This is effective for big companies like Google, eBay, etc but it’s equally effective for small companies too. As you search for domain names you’re probably more apt to find available options that use your brand name. A typical example is www.DetroitLakesFord.com

Here is an overview from Network Solutions’ suggestions for choosing a domain name.

Make it memorable – Ultimately keep in mind that you want to find something that is easy for your customers to remember.
Pick the right extensions – What type of site is it? .com is usually used for businesses, but there are others if that’s taken
Check your spelling
Test different name combinations
Register your domain name ASAP
Register variations and multiple extensions
Don’t give up! there are options if your chosen name is registered

In some respects I think that choosing the domain name is the hardest part in this process. Once that is decided the next steps are much easier. The next post in this series will cover choosing a hosting package.

We advise all our customers to follow good practices in keeping their usernames and passwords secure for their account at network solutions. The contact email address for the domain should also be accurate for their own protection. We have posted some tips that may be useful for domain registrants to keep their account updated here http://solutionsarepower.com/2008/8-tips-to-protect-your-domain-registration/