Well ... almost for free! Of course, you most probably already have an account from popular free email providers like yahoo, hotmail, gmail, etc. or from your Internet service provider. And you might already have your own website using a free webhosting service being offered everywhere. But that is not the way to establish Internet presence for your business. Your business needs to have its own Internet address. And that would cost a few bucks! But not a lot! Don't worry; just read on.
The Importance of Internet Presence
Internet presence is now a must for organizations of any size or industry type. Corporate buyers and individuals now turn to the World Wide Web, instead of the traditional “Yellow Pages” in telephone directories, in searching for specific products or services they need. Electronic mail now surpasses fax transmissions and traditional paper mail, now commonly called ‘snail’ mail, as the primary medium in exchanging information between companies.
Instant messaging allows you to communicate interactively with your contacts even if they are “engaged” from taking your telephone calls. You can even send them text messages to their mobile phones, or even call them, thru the Internet for free! The possibilities are endless.
Establishing Internet presence for your business is very easy. You can even have it for free. Of course you’re already aware of the dozens, even hundreds, of companies offering free email and web hosting. Your local telephone company also provides you with free email as part of your Internet subscription. You can use them, of course, but that might hurt the legitimacy of your business.
Having a free email address like myname@yahoo.com or mycompany@mytelco.com reduces your credibility and authority in the industry you’re in. Having your own email address like yourname@yourcompany.com and website in your own Internet domain like www.mycompany.com conveys a professional image and stability.
You may want to read http://www.free-webhosts.com/free-webhosting-article.php for some free web hosting tips.
Internet Domain
Internet domain is your address in the Internet. Its most basic functionality is to provide recognizable names to numerical addresses in the global Internet resources. Your domain name allows your customers and prospects to find you on the Internet.
Choosing your Internet domain name is important to increase visibility of your website, attract prospective customers, and establish your credibility. At the very least, you should have a domain name that represents your business name. The company I currently work for, NewGen IT Corp., for example has newgen.net.ph as its Internet domain. We chose the .net.ph top level domain because the company offers computer network and other IT services (.net) in the Philippines (.ph). We also chose 'NEWGEN' instead of the initials of our corporate name, NGITC (for NewGen Information Technology Corp.), because it's easier to remember and we'd like to be known as NEWGEN instead of the cryptic NGITC.
On the other hand, we have a client, Prudential Customs Brokerage Services Inc., who chose the initials of their corporate name, 'PCBSI.COM.PH', for their Internet domain name primarily because people might associate 'PRUDENTIAL' to the more popular, and a lot bigger company in the Philippines engaged in the insurance and pre-need business.
Registering Your Domain
To establish the Internet domain for your business you need to register it to the domain registrars. For the .PH domain, the official domain registrar is dotPH (http://www.domains.ph). For .COM and other top-level domains, you can use the services of Internet hosting companies that offers domain registration as part of their hosting services. One of the largest and more popular hosting sites is GoDaddy.com. They offer domain registration for less than US$10/year for the .COM top-level domain.
Email Hosting
Google offers free email and application hosting service for businesses through their Google Apps Standard Edition. Google Apps features several web applications with similar functionality to traditional office productivity applications. It includes Gmail and Calendar with similar functionalities as Microsoft Outlook, Google Talk that competes with Yahoo! and Microsoft Messenger, Google Docs that can interchange files with Microsoft Office, and Google Sites for creating web sites. Your clients and prospects wouldn't know that you're using free email hosting because you'd be using your own domain name for your email.
All of these applications are free in the Standard Edition and offers the same amount of storage space as regular Gmail accounts. However, this service is ad supported so if you find ads annoying, you can upgrade to their Premier Edition, which offers 25GB of email storage at US$50 per account per year. You can disable the ads and it offers a lot of other features like security, archiving, and support.
Here’s the comparison of the two editions:
http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/editions.html
So you could really establish your Internet presence 'almost' for free. Just $10 or less for your company's domain address and free email accounts for you and your employees from Gmail (if you don't mind the ads). But how about your website? Well, you can also have it for free... but that would be for my next post. I'll discuss how to easily create your website and publish it for free.
Please follow this blog and comeback next week.
The Importance of Internet Presence
Internet presence is now a must for organizations of any size or industry type. Corporate buyers and individuals now turn to the World Wide Web, instead of the traditional “Yellow Pages” in telephone directories, in searching for specific products or services they need. Electronic mail now surpasses fax transmissions and traditional paper mail, now commonly called ‘snail’ mail, as the primary medium in exchanging information between companies.
Instant messaging allows you to communicate interactively with your contacts even if they are “engaged” from taking your telephone calls. You can even send them text messages to their mobile phones, or even call them, thru the Internet for free! The possibilities are endless.
Establishing Internet presence for your business is very easy. You can even have it for free. Of course you’re already aware of the dozens, even hundreds, of companies offering free email and web hosting. Your local telephone company also provides you with free email as part of your Internet subscription. You can use them, of course, but that might hurt the legitimacy of your business.
Having a free email address like myname@yahoo.com or mycompany@mytelco.com reduces your credibility and authority in the industry you’re in. Having your own email address like yourname@yourcompany.com and website in your own Internet domain like www.mycompany.com conveys a professional image and stability.
You may want to read http://www.free-webhosts.com/free-webhosting-article.php for some free web hosting tips.
Internet Domain
Internet domain is your address in the Internet. Its most basic functionality is to provide recognizable names to numerical addresses in the global Internet resources. Your domain name allows your customers and prospects to find you on the Internet.
Choosing your Internet domain name is important to increase visibility of your website, attract prospective customers, and establish your credibility. At the very least, you should have a domain name that represents your business name. The company I currently work for, NewGen IT Corp., for example has newgen.net.ph as its Internet domain. We chose the .net.ph top level domain because the company offers computer network and other IT services (.net) in the Philippines (.ph). We also chose 'NEWGEN' instead of the initials of our corporate name, NGITC (for NewGen Information Technology Corp.), because it's easier to remember and we'd like to be known as NEWGEN instead of the cryptic NGITC.
On the other hand, we have a client, Prudential Customs Brokerage Services Inc., who chose the initials of their corporate name, 'PCBSI.COM.PH', for their Internet domain name primarily because people might associate 'PRUDENTIAL' to the more popular, and a lot bigger company in the Philippines engaged in the insurance and pre-need business.
Registering Your Domain
To establish the Internet domain for your business you need to register it to the domain registrars. For the .PH domain, the official domain registrar is dotPH (http://www.domains.ph). For .COM and other top-level domains, you can use the services of Internet hosting companies that offers domain registration as part of their hosting services. One of the largest and more popular hosting sites is GoDaddy.com. They offer domain registration for less than US$10/year for the .COM top-level domain.
| Note that dotPH doains are more expensive (currently at US$70 for 2 years) so you might want to consider using the .COM domain if your business name is not yet taken. |
Email Hosting
Google offers free email and application hosting service for businesses through their Google Apps Standard Edition. Google Apps features several web applications with similar functionality to traditional office productivity applications. It includes Gmail and Calendar with similar functionalities as Microsoft Outlook, Google Talk that competes with Yahoo! and Microsoft Messenger, Google Docs that can interchange files with Microsoft Office, and Google Sites for creating web sites. Your clients and prospects wouldn't know that you're using free email hosting because you'd be using your own domain name for your email.
All of these applications are free in the Standard Edition and offers the same amount of storage space as regular Gmail accounts. However, this service is ad supported so if you find ads annoying, you can upgrade to their Premier Edition, which offers 25GB of email storage at US$50 per account per year. You can disable the ads and it offers a lot of other features like security, archiving, and support.
Here’s the comparison of the two editions:
http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/editions.html
So you could really establish your Internet presence 'almost' for free. Just $10 or less for your company's domain address and free email accounts for you and your employees from Gmail (if you don't mind the ads). But how about your website? Well, you can also have it for free... but that would be for my next post. I'll discuss how to easily create your website and publish it for free.
Please follow this blog and comeback next week.
http://www.newgen.net.ph
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