How to Start to establishing your Web Presence.

The tips below can help you accomplish both goals successfully and get started.

Picking a Domain Name

When it comes to choosing your web site's domain name, you need to keep a few things in mind:

• Your domain name should relate directly to the product or service you provide. Avoid picking a name that is vague or misrepresents your company.
• Your domain name should be easy to remember. Keep the name as short as possible, but do not use unconventional spellings or add hyphens just to secure a version of the name you want.
• Your domain name should be simplistic. Do not pick words which may be difficult to spell or which have multiple spellings. Also, select words and phrases that are common and easy to pronounce, especially if you are aiming your business toward the general public.
• Your domain name should be a .com address whenever possible. Avoid selecting the less common extensions which cost more to register and which will be largely unfamiliar to your clients.
• Do not use your company name as the domain name. Rather use the keywords that would best describe your business or service.

Once you do select a domain name, you should consider registering other variations of the name. That way if someone uses the wrong extension or adds a hyphen, he or she still end up right where you want them.

Here are some good places to register your domain:

• GoDaddy.com (Recommended)
• NetWork Solutions

Choosing Web Hosting

You could literally go crazy trying to compare all of the hundreds of hosting plans and providers on the market. To narrow down your options, talk to friends and business associates who have professional web sites. Ask them which providers they use or recommend. Also ask them what problems they have and if the site is sucessfull.

Once you've found a manageable number of potential providers, you can begin to compare plans. Here are a few things you should focus on:

• Money Back Guarantee
  Many providers offer a 30-Day money back guarantee so that you can try their service risk free. Always look for this option so you don't get stuck with a service you're unhappy with.
• Storage Space
  This is the amount of room you will have for your site. Of course, you don't want to pay for room you don't need, but you also want room to grow. If you've a small site in mind 10-15 MB should be sufficient to begin with.
• The Package
  What else do you get included in your package. Some providers get rich through the add-ons and use the web hosting just to get your business. Other options include email addresses, newsletter facilities, statistics on visitors, a easy to create web pages front-end such that you don't need to learn about complicated software, Updates of site without costs, Tools to submit pages to search engines automatically, tools to optimize pages for search engines, E-commerce facilities, usage of your own CGI scripts, a library of standard CGI scripts, The use of a database and the list goes on.
• Bandwidth/Data Transfer
  Data transfer (bandwidth usage) refers to how much data/information is sent to or received from your hosting account on the server over a specified period of time. Usually it is measured monthly. The more visitors to your site, the more bandwidth you'll require. Small sites can usually get by with 1 GB/month.
• Site Speed
  This is a very important factor when considering a hosting service and will determine how fast your site loads when someone visits. Online surfers are extremely busy, so you need a fast server to keep them from leaving your site before it even gets loaded! Ask your hosting provider to provide you with a list of their clients' sites (if they can) so you can check their speed. Here's a good tool to check a site's speed: Website Speed Test
• Customer Service
  You strive to provide exceptional service and you should expect nothing less from your web hosting company. Look for multiple methods of receiving service, such as a toll-free phone number or live chat. You may also want to consider testing their response time in advance.
• Uptime Guarantee
  Your web site is like your store. If your store is closed, you aren't making any money. The same is true if your web site is down. You should only choose a plan that provides at least a 99% uptime guarantee.
• Cost
  Price should also be a deciding factor. Cheaper is not always better, but there are reasonable rates for quality hosting available if you do your research.

Also, as far as possible, try to choose a hosting company that allows easy upgrade/downgrade between plans. This way you can trim down your costs to the maximum.

Using these tips and suggestions, you should easily be on your way to establishing a successful web presence and to reaping all the benefits the Internet has to offer.

My recommendations for Web site Hosting

1. site-build-it
   This costs about R3000  a year and is by far the best offer and most complete service offered anywhere that I have seen. So much so they are my provider and it powers this site. So far You get the following package: 
   • A provider for your site.
   • A domain name.
   • A tool to build your web pages. All you have to do is fill out a form and the page is finished. Of course you can use FTP too if you are already internet savvy and want to design the pages yourself.
   • Very decent statistics about your visitors. How many unique persons have visited rather than hits on the site. You need to know how the people got there and which keywords were used. Without this info you cannot measure if your site is working. Who actually cares what the screen resolution of your visitors is.
   • Statistics to see your website position for a particular keyword on the search engines.
   • A method of optimizing pages of your site for the search engines
   • An automatic method of submitting you site to the top search engines
   • A facility to collect email addresses and send newsletters to your site visitors.
   • A link exchange Program which enables you to more easily improve your link popularity
   • A tool for researching keywords so that you build relevant pages and not pages for the virtual trash can. I personally find that this tool is worth more to me than any other part of the package
   • An upgrade facility to include E-Commerce i.e. to accept payment pay by credit cards online and a method of selling your service.
   • A book on how to go about building and marketing your site which is in my opinion a little to intense. Its like 600 pages and there are few people out there that will ever read the whole thing. Its also maybe a little too general as folks that need web sites for their tourism services already have a pretty exact path that needs to be followed.
   • The integration and use of a database. I have not yet found that I need to use this facility but maybe you will.
   • As many email adresses as you like @your-domain-name.com

More resources about building an internet marketing strategy for tourism services using the internet

• Marketing your Tourism Service on the Internet

If you have any questions about any of this then drop me a mail or give me a ring 036/3523143 and I will see if I can help you. I am not an internet expert or an internet provider rather a tiny guest house owner in the foothills of the Drakensberg. All I can give you is a wealth of information on how to go about promoting your tourism service by building a website yourself affordably. 

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