So you’ve chosen your domain name, and you’ve registered it as well. What’s the next step? You need to choose a web host or a web hosting service. Why is it important to choose a web host?

This service will store and maintain (hence term “host”) all the data you need to keep your web site up. As you can probably see, it is quite crucial that you choose the right service for your web site as anything else will prove to be disastrous for your online business. Here are some things that you need to look into when choosing the best web hosting service for your needs.

Amount of space. How much space do you need? How much is the web host offering? Bear in mind that while you might need a small amount right now, you would probably want to expand in the future.

Reliability, speed, and security. It goes without saying that you need to be assured that all the data that goes through your web site is secure. You also need to be assured that the web host will be able to provide their service 24/7, and that any downtime is covered by the agreement you make. More so, you will want to make sure that users will not experience slow loading times.

Support. This is tied in with reliability. If downtime does occur, or if you experience other technical problems, how will the web host help you? Round the clock customer support is ideal; however, expect to pay more for this.

These are only some of the things that you need to check out. Bottom line: draw out your plans and expectations first, and make sure the web host can meet them.

In the last post, we talked about some things to bear in mind when starting an online business. One of the most important steps was to pick a domain name and register it. So how do you go about doing this? Read on to find out.

Go to a domain name registrar. You have a lot of choices here. I suggest looking at the following:

1. Go Daddy
2. eNom
3. Tucows
4. Network Solutions
5. 1&1 Internet AG (a.k.a. Schlund.de)

These are the top 5 registrars as of February 2010, according to Wikipedia. For my personal blogs, I use Go Daddy.

I assume that at this point, you already have an idea of what you want your domain name to be. Once you’re in the domain name registrar site, check the availability of your desired domain name. If it’s already taken, you have to try another name. This is why you need several alternatives. You may also change the suffix (instead of .com, try .org, etc.).

Once you get your desired domain name, just follow the online prompts for payment and registration; and you’re all set!

If this sounds like gibberish to you, here is an easier way. Go to www.google.com/apps. You can click on the option Google Apps for Business and read about your options. It is very easy to register a domain name using this, and you get your own Google Apps package as well. I actually use them as I get e-mail, calendar, docs, and more in one go.

You may already have a business running, but you might be thinking of going online to expand it. In some ways, starting an online business has a lot of similarities to starting the brick-and-mortar kind. In many other ways, there are big differences. Let us take a look at some of the most essential steps that you need to take when starting an online business.

Treat it as you would when starting an “offline” business. You need to get permits, register the business, do research, and all that stuff. Make sure that these things have been done even before you start going the online route.

Pick out a domain name and register it. The domain name is the web address of your online business. Ours is biziki.com. What will yours be? There are many ways by which you can register a domain name. We’ll take a look at that in a separate post.

Choose a web host. Once you’ve registered your domain name, you need to get a web host. This is the entity that will give you the storage space you’ll need as well as the support that you might have to rely on. Again, we will look at the specifics in a separate post, as it can be quite detail-intensive.

Create your site. You can opt to design your web site yourself, but you might need expert help. If I were you, I’d find someone who has extensive experience in web site design and work with them.

Market your web site. This is very very important. People will not come in droves to your site unless you spread the word. It’s basically the same as an offline business. Marketing and advertising is absolutely necessary.

I realize that I just posted a feature on a free webinar yesterday, but as I said in my previous post, I am loving the idea of being able to learn for free online. Free webinars are one of the hottest things going on today, and I hope that you will take advantage of these whenever you can. If you have the time, I suggest that you attend the free webinar that Pat Gage is conducting on the 6th of April, 6:00 PM PST. If you don’t – well, make the time!

The free webinar is titled “How To Use Social Media To Grow Your Business Without Spending A Ton On Advertising.” Now doesn’t that title provide you with enough motivation to attend the webinar? Here’s some information on Pat Gage in case you want to know more about him:

Pat Gage is an expert web 2.0 and is to give out strategies to use Web 2.0 to grow your business in times to come. Pat Gage will also offer helpful tips to increase the traffic of your website or blog and he will also tell the method to acquire free content for one’s social media blog or website.

Pat Gage will provide effective tips on how to get followers on twitter and how to attain your videos on first page of Google, and other important tips regarding SEO and Internet Marketing. Pat Gage will also share the beneficial secret of getting connected to the businessmen in LinkedIn during the seminar. The other aspects of Web 2.0 that will be covered during the seminar are how to send bulk emails to a list of friends, how to build your list by offering free videos and the importance of Auto-Pilot. He will also explain how Facebook, Twitter and Myspace help in improving the business.

What are you waiting for? Visit Info Seminars Club and learn your way to business success!

One of the things I like most about the Internet is that you get a lot of information without it costing you a single cent! With the technology widely available, you can easily embark on a self-improvement journey. These days, one of the best sources of information are the free webinars that you can find online. Some webinars require a fee, but there are a lot which are offered for absolutely free!

One webinar that is coming is Cold Calling Live. It is a project that spans about 6 weeks of training and will be launched in April 13, 2010. Sponsored by Weiss Communications, the project includes a free webinar, which will be held on the 30th of March, 2:00 PM Eastern time. Here’s more information from the press release:

Sales professionals, business owners and entrepreneurs who want to ‘try out’ Cold Calling College Live 2.0 will have an opportunity to do so on Tues., March 30th at 2:00 p.m. Eastern. At that time, Ms. Weiss, will deliver a free, information-packed, preview webinar of Cold Calling College Live 2.0. She will be sharing some of the tools, scripts and strategies that will be available to participants in the program. Those who attend the preview webinar will also have the opportunity to submit their questions ahead of time or ask questions live during the webinar.

For more information and/or to register for the information-packed, free, Cold Calling College Live 2.0 preview webinar: visit the Wendy Weiss website.

Even if you’re not planning on enrolling for the whole program, this webinar might help you!

Are you ready to do what it takes to make sure that your network in the office is secure? Maybe you do not really think it’s that urgent of an issue. Well, if I were you, I’d take a step back and think again. With all the cases of hacking, phishing, and whatnot out there, it may just be a matter of time till you would have to deal with these problems in your own network! Why wait till that happens? Take some steps to ensure the security of your office network NOW.

There are simple things that you can do to increase your network security. You don’t even really have to do it yourself – that’s what the IT guy is for. However, you should have an idea of what you want to achieve. This way, your solutions will be more effective.

One simple thing to secure your office network is to take note of the units which hold the most sensitive information. This information includes – but is not limited to – credit card information of your clients, your bank information, and so on. What you can do then is to take these units off of the Internet. That is, make it accessible through the local network but block it from the outside world. This will give you a greater degree of security.

One thing that greatly increases your risk is when employees visit dubious sites. Unfortunately, this will always happen. One way to deal with this is to block certain sites. Of course, your employees will probably hate you for that, but you are running a business and you might just have to go this route. You may purchase software to help you with this.

At the end of the day, what you do will depend on your taking into consideration all the factors in play – and that includes dealing with your employees.

You run your own business, hopefully successfully. You probably are smarter than a fifth grader. The more important question is, just how smart do you think you are? Are you the kind of leader that thinks he knows it all? Or maybe you don’t really think that but if you take a step back and analyze how you work and how you behave at work, you just might see that you send across that message.

This post is meant to be a wake up call for all small business owners out there. We have to understand the importance of learning. More than that, we have to understand that learning is a lifelong process and we just can’t know it all. No matter how smart we may be, no matter how much we know, no matter how much experience we may have had, there is always something new that we can learn.

How exactly can we continue learning? It’s not that hard. I believe that the first step is to keep an open mind. Recognize and acknowledge that there is always something that can be learned. With this attitude, it will be easier to find learning experiences in most everything.

In concrete terms, one way to pick up new insights is to interact with other business owners. You don’t even have to do this face to face. CEO blogs, web sites, books, and forums are all good ways to exchange information and learn.

Another way is to always keep yourself updated with regard to your field. Journals, web sites, forums, and other regular publications can help with this. For sure, new developments will arise – and you cannot afford not to know about these things.

You may be smarter than a fifth grader, but you have to outsmart yourself in order to go further.

There are a lot of marketing strategies and techniques available to the business owner. The trick is in being able to analyze and make educated guesses as to which activities will yield the best results. Of course, there really is no perfect guarantee that the conversion rates will soar, but with observation, testing, and critical analysis, you are bound to get the results that you want.

Web presence has always been a popular term. It means that people know that you exist and that they can find you online easily. One way you can achieve a strong web presence is by exposing your content to your audience.

What do I mean? You have a web site, right? You want people to visit it and see what you have to offer. This means you might have to engage in activities such as paid search so that your site will come up as a sponsored link (such as in Google). This is one way to go about it.

Another way is to push your web site content to other locations which receive more traffic. Let us say you have videos on your web site. What is the first web site that comes to mind when I say video? I bet it’s YouTube. The idea is to publish this video on YouTube as well. The chances of people discovering that video through YouTube are way higher than if you let the video remain on your web site alone.

The same principle applies to other context such as text and photos. You have to figure out which sites aggregate various content and make sure that your content gets in there.

You have to face it – VoIP just might be the best solution for your business’ telecommunications needs. While the technology has been around for so long, not everyone is using it. This is due to so many reasons but the bottom line is that more and more business owners are seeing the benefits of implementing a VoIP system for the company. If you are on the hunt for a VoIP provider, here are some questions that can help you get the most out of it.

How easy is it to add or remove phones?
The technical term usually used is “scalable.” Ask potential VoIP providers if their system is scalable. This also means that you can add or remove phones WITHOUT having to spend more money. This is quite important if you have plans of expanding in the near future.

Is your area serviced excellently by the provider?
Just like mobile phone providers and other similar services, VoIP service may not be the same in all areas. As such, you need to make sure that potential providers work excellently in your area. You can ask existing customers in your area and even ask the provider for a test run.

What is included in their customer service?
VoIP is great but it is not without problems. If something happens and your connection goes down, how will customer service help? How fast will they fix things? What other problems are covered by their customer service? You should know all these things before making a decision.

We’re in the middle of the first work week of 2010. How are things going at the office? I sure hope that your year is off to a good – no, great – start. If it is not that great, here are some things that you can do NOW. It is not too late anyway.

Take a look at your personal expenses. What does this have to do with your business? While things just might turn out to be much better in 2010, a lot of small business owners are saying that they are taking home less and less money from the business. Of course, being the owner, you have more to lose. As early as now, see what you can cut back on personally, just in case you won’t be able take home as much money as you want.

Prepare for tax time NOW. It’s still several months away, but you know just how hectic the tax period is. This can take your time and focus away from running the business efficiently. As such, do your preparations as early as you can, in increments. This will help you keep focused on the more essential things.

Don’t borrow too much. Common sense, really, but this year, resolve to depend on yourself as much as you can. You might have to dip into your savings, but that is better than owing other people money and having to pay interest on it.

Stay healthy. You are the boss. You make decisions. You run the business. If you get sick, your business will suffer, and you will spend more on medical expenses.