A few years ago, shopping was an activity that primarily took place in stores and over the phone. These days, e-shopping has come to reign supreme. Although most stores still have physical locations, carving out a well-recognized presence in online communities is vital. With a bit of creativity and skill, your business can benefit from today’s technology by devising a strategy that adeptly integrates your domain name and presence online.

When you are starting a business, you might be tempted to begin by relying on free internet tools such as email, Facebook, and Twitter to reach out to clients. These are all valuable resources for non-profit organizations and businesses alike. However, when you begin depending on them to reach out to customers, it is difficult to establish a unique image without a business website. It’s important to secure a domain name related to your business the moment you go into business.

Selecting the right domain name takes a bit more thought and effort than you might think, but the investment will pay off for years to come. A significant portion of common, everyday words have already been snapped up by businesses so it is useful to maintain a flexible attitude to avoid getting frustrated. As an initial step, it is a good idea to jot down keywords and short expressions that describe the business. If you get stuck, ask a friend or business partner to help brainstorm. Look through brochures and materials you have around the office and think of words that epitomize the goods and services being offered to your clients.

A short and easy to recall name is best. Lengthy names or those with unusual punctuation or numerals may be difficult for your customers to remember.

Naming your domain can be the inspiration for you entire web presence. Make sure you do it right the first time. Rebranding a mistake can be costly in any number of ways.

We recently added some new features for our web hosting customers, so here’s a summary of everything that’s been happening here at Websoftnet.

PHP 5 is becoming our default version in September

We’ve updated our default version of PHP from 4 to 5. Those of you running legacy software that won’t work on PHP 5, you’ll need to add a line of code to your .htaccess file  – see our blog entry for more info.

One-click WordPress 3.0.1 and BuddyPress 1.2.5.2 now available

Our web hosting customers can now take advantage of a one-click install of the popular blogging software WordPress 3.0.1 and the social communication script BuddyPress 1.2.5.2. Simply log into your eXtend panel and scroll down to ‘CGI scripts’ for a fresh install in just a few seconds.

For more information on this change, click here: WordPress one-click installs.

One-click Zen Cart v1.3.9f and Drupal 6.19

One-click installs of Zen Cart and Drupal have also been updated so you can take advantage of the latest releases. The software can be found in the ‘CGI scripts’ area of your control panel, and our one-click install means you can enjoy great ecommerce and content management systems within seconds.

File permission checker added to eXtend

Our  eXtend control panel now have a new feature called ‘Check Site Permissions’. This new feature has been added to let you bulk check your websites file permissions without having to go through them all manually one by one. For further details, check out the blog post.

We have added a new feature to eXtend called ‘Check Site Permissions’. This new feature has been added to let you bulk check your websites file permissions without having to go through them all manually one by one. It will:

1. Check that the permissions make any sense at all, e.g. that a directory is accessible or that a script is executable

2. Check for conditions which would make the web server refuse to run a script for security reasons

3. Check for permissions which are likely to lead to security problems on your site

4. Where appropriate, recommendations for changes to the existing permissions will also be given to make your website more secure. You can then agree to the recommended permissions through this page (or choose to ignore them).

Customers who have ‘File Manager’ enabled as a feature will automatically get access to this in their control panel.

The name of a domain directly affects the overall success of a website, not only through search engine optimization, but also through the eyes of the visitors themselves. A memorable domain name will ensure repeat traffic in many cases, based simply on the fact that most visitors will find it easy to return to a site with a domain name that is easy to remember.

To simplify the process, consider some of the following factors when choosing a domain name.

Domain Extension

The domain name extension or TLD is a crucial factor. The extension of a domain is simply the letters that follow the dot, for example – .com, .net, and .org – are all domain extensions. Dot com domains seem to outperform their counterparts in almost all instances, however .org and .net domains also rank well in the search engines.

Domain Name Length

The length of the domain name is also very important, as it directly affects the memorability of the name. If a domain name is 30 characters and 4 words long there is a very slim chance that someone will remember it. Thus, it is very unlikely that you will receive repeat organic traffic unless you are highly ranked for a common keyword.

Domain Syntax

Another important factor to consider is the syntax; the arrangement of words or letters within the domain name. A domain name with numbers that substitute words are generally less valuable. For example, the domain name food4thought.com would be less valuable than the domain name foodforthought.com. The reason for this is simple, when someone executes a search for a particular keyword, the chances of them typing in the number 2 or 4 instead of the words “to” or “for” are very low. Following the same reasoning, dashes also take away from the value of a domain name, as most people do not include dashes in their search queries.

Keyword Optimization

Perhaps the most important aspect of a domain name is the keyword that it is targeting. The most valuable kind of domain name is one that is an exact match of a keyword that is commonly searched for. Also known as an exact match domain, these names are sought after because they tend to go straight to the top of the search engines for specific phrases, with little or no effort. For example, if someone searches for the term “shopping,” it would not be surprising to see shopping.com in one of the top spot, even if the content and on-page design has not been search engine optimized. Registering a domain name with one of these phrases is becoming increasingly rare, however it is possible.

Domain names can be registered here