A Note On Starting Your Own Company...

[Cyberprog]

I frequently come across clients who've started their own company, but not bothered to check the availability of their business name as a domain name, or have made poor choices in picking their "name"

Therefore, here's my advice list for anyone starting up:

1) Pick a name that is easily pronounced over the phone.

2) Check for the availability of both a .com and .co.uk domain name. Don't bother with any other tld's as they rarely give the right impression (save maybe .net)

3) Don't use hyphens! I had one client whose domain was this-is-a-silly-domain-org.uk. Not only were they breaking the registry rules for a .org.uk domain (Supposed to be for not-for profit organisations) but it was hard to advertise and for people to email right.

4) Avoid putting free (ISP supplied of totally free) email addresses in your literature/on your van! Having "gigalo999@gmail.com" on your van doesn't exactly start the right impression, and they're frequently again hard to remember. Sales@domain.tld is a lot simpler and easier, as all the customer needs to remember is the domain typically.

5) If you name can be spelt different ways, register all the combinations - could be the difference between a job getting through or not!

6) When doing your website, keep things low key and informative. Animated Gif's are typically not something we see these days, while they were perfectly acceptable when I started out in 2000!

I've been doing Website Hosting & Design since approx 1996, and running my own company full time since leaving School in 2001, so have a good deal of experience in this line of work and am happy to help any members here with website/domain issues. I now do Networks/Access primarily, and a little bit of alarm work (though for commercial stuff I just specify on my clients behalf and organise quotes from installers due to the NACOSS requirements etc.).

Alex.