Oh, so you have started your business. You have the business cards made, you are passing them out and building your client base. You have already joined many networking groups in hopes to jump start your new business with success. Your next step you think is build your website…just as soon as you save up enough money to do it the correct way and make your website and company stand apart from the rest. You don’t think you will be ready or able to afford a website for a year, so you don’t get the domain you want.
Hold on!
(websites can be done correctly for less than you think….)
There are many issues here, but I will bypass the fact that you are waiting to get a website up…the fact that a website for any size company shows another level of being real, longevity, and bascially a 24/7 open sign. The issue we are dealing with today is why buy a domain name now if you have chosen to wait on the website? There are many reasons.
Your email…You are probably starting out your business with a Gmail, yahoo, hotmail, or even a cable company email address. You have it every place you can think of. Your business cards, your yellow pages ad, your flyers, your email footer, your letterhead, etc. Two things come to mind.
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First, you should not put your company communication in the hands of a free service (see http://www.chitwood.org/chitwoodblog/index.php/page/6/ ). But with that said, you plan on having your domain name in a year and I hope your email with that domain. What about all the materials you passed out in that first year. All the places on the web that you have entered that “temp” email address into? Are you going to change all that? Are you going to keep that “temp” email address forever to insure you can get all the payoff from that first year of marketing? It is better to start off with your email address with your new domain from the start to insure the best ROI from all your marketing now and throughout the following years of business.
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Second, let’s say you live on the west side of town, then suddenly for whatever reason, you need to either move to the east side of town or in a metro area, move into an entire different city? The cable company you once were with is not available at the other location, yet your business is still up and running doing what it does. Your email just might have to go away. Now all the marketing, business cards, etc are out of date and people cannot contact you. (yes, your phone should stay)
Domain aging is a good thing. The longer your domain is registered in the past, the better the search engines like you. You are not a fly by night possible spam or fraud site. You are older and more experienced and therefore probably more important for the search results. Same thing in the future. If you register and renew your site every year, the search engines see…”well, maybe they will be there in the future”. If you register and renew your domain in 10 year blocks, then the search engines will see…”oh yes…they will still be here…INDEX THEM MORE”.
Get your domain now for your website, email and building your business.
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