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DQ News: Review: 3 Complete Packages to Get Your Business Online Today

Getting your small business started online can be a frustrating task. You need a domain name, a website, someone to design the website and code it for you, a shopping cart programmed to sell your products, and another person to set it up for you. The fact is, many small business owners cannot afford to have someone else take care of everything.

Luckily, there are solutions you can implement yourself.

1. Yahoo! Small Business

The basic 12 month web hosting package on Yahoo! Small Business starts at $7.46 for the first three months, then moves up to $9.95 per month. The package includes:

• A suite of simple website design tools. For those who aren’t tech-savvy, or don’t want to build the website from the foundation up, Yahoo! offers a number of free, professional-looking website designs that you can use to get started. There is also support for MySQL, Flash, Shockwave, and PayPal.

• Security and reliability. Yahoo! Small Business offers a 30 day satisfaction guarantee, an uptime guarantee, and 24/7 support online, or via phone or email. Your website is backed up on multiple servers to ensure your website stays live.

• Disk space, email and analytics. Your website has unlimited disk space, unlimited data transfer, and unlimited email storage for 1,000 business email addresses. Yahoo! also provides a full analytics suite, so you can see what kind of traffic your website is receiving.

• Ecommerce features such as a shopping cart, inventory management support, and order management are sold separately, but may not be necessary for the business just starting out.

2. Go Daddy

Go Daddy remains a competitive player in small business offerings, and the 12 month “Ultimate” hosting package costs only $14 a month.  The package is very similar to the Yahoo! Small Business basic package above, including the unlimited spaces, data transfer, and the 1000 emails, but offers a few extras:

• Access to the ZenCart ecommerce add-on, a shopping cart for your users when purchasing items from your website. You have to set it up yourself, but Go Daddy offers some support, and there are tutorials available online.

• Advertising credit. Go Daddy offers advertising credits for your website to many major search engines and popular social networking websites, allowing for greater immediate exposure, ideal for any starting business.

Go Daddy has had some customer service issues, and occasionally website slow downs, but overall is a well respected, reliable hosting service.

3. Adobe Business Catalyst

Adobe Business Catalyst has the steepest learning curve of the three, but is also backed by a large, very well respected company that specializes in professional business software. The 12 month “Business” hosting package runs approximately $17 a month, and again offers similar options to the above packages, with a few notable exceptions:

• Rotating advertising. Not only does Business Catalyst support email advertising, it also offers support for dynamic ad rotation on the internet, allowing your advertising to stay fresh across websites.

• A free, 30 day satisfaction trial. Because of the learning curve, the 30-day free trial is valuable, since you may discover the web host isn’t a good fit for you.

• Business email addresses are limited to ten in this package, though if you’re just starting, you may not need more than that.

How do I get started?

All of these services are similar, and each will walk you through the set up process, once you’ve decided which is best for you and your budget. Get your domain and e-mail address set up first. After that, get your website looking the way you want, and enough information to attract your users and start generating sales. When the demand is there, create your shopping cart to offer any products you may have.

After your website is running, don’t just sit back and wait for the sales to happen! Online advertising, search engine optimization, and other marketing techniques can be covered by the remainder of your budget to improve your conversion rate and generate more leads and sales.

About the Author: Lin Edwards is a content and technical writer at SmallBusiness-Domain.com, where you will find web hosting, domain names and e-commerce offers and promo codes, such as GoDaddy coupons. Follow Small Business Domain: http://twitter.com/#!/sbdomain

Photo Credit: hokkey

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