.com, .cn, or .org? Which type of domain is better?
Picking a top-level-domain usually goes with the language and the target group of the website. We consider each language version of a website an individual website.

For usability and findability reasons it useful to look at different language versions as individual websites. Although the websites look identical, the content is different, the target group is different, the phone number or office address might be different.

For multi-language website it makes sense to create a separate website for each language:

• International English site at domain.com,
• Chinese language at domain.cn
• Japanese language version at domain.jp

This way each website version is focused on its target group. This also makes it much simpler to implement targeted campaigns in each country and to generally adapt the website to fit each local target group.

Protecting your brand name
A way to protect your brand name is to register the brand in all domain types.

domain.com, domain.net, domain.org, domain.cn, etc. This effectively prevents copy-cats from leaching of your marketing efforts. Some also opt to register mistyped and misspelled versions of their brand as domain names, i.e. domani.com, doman.com, domane.com. These extra domains can be set-up to seamlessly redirect the visitor to the intended domain. For example, we have set “danskadesign.com” to redirect to “danskadesigns.com“, to make sure our visitors can find us even if they forget the “s” at the end of our name.

Domain registration
These are issues to consider before registering your domain name or names.

At our domain registration-page you can check the availability of a wide variety of domain name types, and order them directly from our preferred domain registrar Moniker.

When you register a domain, you buy the rights to that domain for a time period and the ability to control what people see in their web browser, then they type in this domain.

Register your domain right away
Remember to register your domain, before you do anything else. Make sure you get your name before someone else does. The price for a .com domain for one year is less than $10. So just go and register the domain. We can change the detailed settings later.

Click here to see if your domain is available.

Domain registration is prepaid on a yearly basis. If you can pay several years up front, you don’t have to remember to renew the registration each year, plus you usually get a bulk-discount.

Part of your domain registration service is the ability to connect your domain to your website’s server. This is called DNS: Domain Name Service. This means that when people write your domain into their web browser, they will instantly see the website stored on your web server.

What is a domain?
Domains are made up of two parts. The domain name and the “top-level-domain”. The Top-level-domain (TLD) is the country-code after the dot in the domain: “com”, “net”, “cn”, “org”, etc.

The domain name is before the dot: “Google”, “Yahoo” or “voxmediagroup”. Domain names are not case-sensitive, meaning “GoOgLe.com” is the same as “google.com” and “GOOGLE.COM”. This part is usually limited to the 25 letters of the English language, numbers and dash (”-”) and underscore (”_”).

International domain names
It is also possible to register a domain using international characters, like ä, ö, ü, ø, å, ñ and so on. You can even use Chinese characters in your domain name. It is not always a good idea to move beyond the English keyboard, because some users are not able to type in these characters. However, the option of international domain names can be a good supplement for your online marketing. Contact us to find out more about international domain names.

Web hosting
Once you have registered your domain, you will need a web hosting service, to get your website up and running. The web host provides a server where the files of your website are located.

Contact us, and we’ll help registering your domain and set up web hosting.

• Paypal.com
• Authorize.com

The prices and features of different payment gateways vary, and it is really up to you to decide which one is right for your situation, in terms of cost (fixed costs versus cost per transaction).

Some gateways offer graphical integration with your website design, others use their own design (such as paypal and google checkout).

Most payment gateways offer an account management system for tracking payments and transactions. Some of these gateways offer special automatic recurring payment (ARP) options – which is relevant for subscription-based products such as newspapers and webzines, or subscription-based services such as IT-support.

When deciding upon a payment gateway, these are some relevant issues to keep in mind:

• Fixed cost of service versus cost per transaction
• Variety of credit cards the payment gateway is able to accept – which ones do you need?
• Possibility to integrate the design of the payment gateway to match your website.

You are always welcome to contact us to learn more about setting up a web shop and online payment for your website.

Today mass-emailing is not that simple. The reason: Unsolicited Bulk E-mails also known as SPAM-mails. We all get tons of them all the time and nobody likes them.

Because of the growing SPAM-mail problem more and more people are using anti-spam software, and respectable web hosting companies (the ones who handle your website as well as your emails) are setting up sending limits for outgoing emails.

The web servers that do not help fight against SPAM will be blacklisted by other web servers and none of the emails they send out will reach their destination – SPAM or no SPAM.

The idea of a newletter mailing-list is to only send to people who agree to receive your emails. A newsletter mailing-list function has 3 parts:

1. The front-end interface, where user will sign up and unsubscribe,
2. A secure database where all the email addresses are stored,
3. The back-end interface where you manage the addresses on the list and send out mails

With a good mailing-list interface you are able to send out emails with images and text-formatting. You will also have the option to schedule the sending of your emails, so that you can write the email on Wednesday afternoon (when you have time) and have it automatically sent out on Monday morning when your phone is ringing off the hook.

Unsubscribe option
Giving your receivers the option to unsubscribe is essential when sending out a serious newsletter. If someone doesn’t want to receive your newsletter it should be as easy as 1-2-3 to stop them coming. Remember, just because someone doesn’t want your newsletter doesn’t mean that they wont buy your product. So it is important to stay professional and service-minded, even in your automated internet marketing efforts. Your business will benefit in the long run.

If the receiver can not unsubscribe they will simply delete it. Anti-spam software will then pick it up and put your email address in their anti-spam list, and before you know it your website domain name is blacklisted by central anti-spam databases. And that, of course, is very bad. Besides, what is the point of having 500 subscribers in your list when you have no idea how many of those send your email straight to the trash-bin?

An effective means of delivering your message
When your newsletter receivers have chosen to be on the list, the chance that they will actually read what you send out is far greater. You will be writing to readers already interested in reading what you have to say, and that means that you will have a much better chance at successfully getting your message across.

Contact us to find out how to add a newsletter to your online marketing toolbox.