Beginners Area:
So you are just starting out with your own business and you need a web site…. What steps do you take? Where do you start? My hope for you is that once you are done reading this section..you will have the answers you are looking for.
So first off…hopefully you know what type of business you are starting. If you do then you are ready for the next step. Some of the things you will need starting off are:
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A Domain Name.-So where do you find if your domain name is available? You can go to my Domain Checker
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A Tax ID-unless you already have one for an existing business. To apply for a tax id online you can go to: http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=102767,00.html
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Someone to host your web site.-This is an easy one. Once you have found you are ready to “host” your site you can contact me. Think of “hosting” as a “home” for your web site to live. This allows your site to be seen on the internet.
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A shopping cart (in order to accept payments on your web site.)- If you are selling items you can check into Mal’s (http://www.mals-e.com) or use PayPal’s shopping cart buttons.
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A payment processor (i.e. PayPal, ProPay or a Merchant Account-or a combination of these).**note** when just starting out a Merchant Account might be an expensive way to go-or something you may rather add at a later time. We will visit this later.-You can sign up for free for a PayPal business account. When accepting payments via PayPal.com, you can have the fees taken out per transaction, so you aren’t paying a monthly fee for their services. If you really feel you need a Merchant account you can check into PayPal’s Merchant information. They do charge $30 a month plus fees per transaction. Also they hold 30 percent of your payments for 90 days then release them to you back into your PayPal account.
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A mailing list- Although I have used other mailing list places I have to say that Elite Emails is by far the best for your dollar. Currently (and for quite a while now), they give you 1000 “credits”…for FREE. Each credit is 1 email. So if you have say 50 people on your mailing list and mail then 2 times a month you will take a while to use up your free credits. Then when you have used them up their packages start as low as $10. No Monthly Fees and very professional templates to choose from. A quote right from their site: “Send eye-catching email newsletters, promotions & flyers.
Manage your mailing list and access real-time reports.
SEND 1,000 EMAILS FOR FREE – NO TIME LIMIT! “ . You can go to: Domain Checker
