Setting up your business online is pretty easy. You just need to register a domain name and then choose a website platform and website hosting that is right for your business

1. Getting my business online - creating my first website
Domain Name
Before you can have a website for your business you will need a domain name. You can register your
domain name at various domain name registers. Anyone can register a .com domain name but if most of
your customers are located in Australia it's best to register a .com.au
In order to register a .com.au domain name you will need an ABN number. If you don't have an ABN
register for one here:
www.abr.gov.au
Once you have your ABN you can register any .com.au domain name that is available. Please visit
www.cheapdomaions.com.au to register a domain name.
Website Hosting
Website hosting suppliers and costs vary due to the guaranteed amount of 'uptime' plus other factors
such as:
Disc space allowance
Band width allowance
Technical support
Server Permissions
All of our websites come with one year’s free website hosting which will give you all the required disc
space and bandwidth you need. Any technical problems that arise are addressed and corrected by
ourselves and the hosting company we use.
Email Account
As soon as you set up a business you will need an email account. Ideally you will create a professional
email account such as yourname@yourwebsite.com.au as opposed to bigjohn@bigpond.com.au
A professional email address just resonates better with potential customers - even if you are still
working from home.
At Pixelfire we don't store email messages on the server as they use up too much disc space. We use and
recommend Google Apps email accounts. With Google Apps you can safely keep all of your emails and
use the other tools that come with Google App accounts. See setting up Google Apps for more
information.

2. Basic / Static Websites
A basic website is a collection of separate HTML pages that you can edit with Dreamweaver or a text
editor. These types of websites were generally used for brochure sites but I believe static HTML sites are
pretty much redundant. Every site needs to be optimised for Google. In addition to this you will need to
keep adding fresh web pages which is difficult to do with a static site. Image you build up 20 pages and
on each page there is a link to a PDF download. If one day you wanted to change the name of that
download you would have to update 20 pages! With a dynamic website you would only update that link
name once and that would be implemented globally across the website.
Dynamic Websites
If you want to create an online business that is going to get you noticed you will need some kind of
dynamic website - a content managed system website. There are many different platforms to choose to
create a dynamic CMS website. Ex: Joomla, Wordpress, Magento etc.
Dynamic CMS websites don't have pages. They have a template which holds all of the styling
information.
The 'page' information is stored on a database. If a visitor wants to see the About Us information, they
click the link and the information is pulled from the database and then styled on the fly by the template.
This way the information is kept separate from the styling. This means we can easily make styling
changes to all of the pages with just one bit of code.
The most important part about having a dynamic site is that you can easy create many pages using a
WYSIWYG editor. Ideal for people who don't have much HTML knowledge. That said, a little HTML
knowledge will help you if you are going to have a website for your business.
Online Shopping Cart Websites
Joomla is a great CMS in that it allows you to add a shopping cart component so you can sell products
and services on your website. You can easily add many categories and products and accept payments
online when you integrate PayPal into your online store.
If you have any questions about getting your business online or setting up a website for your business
please call us on 03 9789 8563 and we'd be happy to help.
Neil Forrester Follow me on Facebook, Twitter or Google+. There's more on me at the About Us page.
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