Easy Site Guide

Easy Way To Create Your Website

Guides

Part 1 – Start on Firm Ground!

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To Create a Successful E-commerce Website you need to:

  • Select an appropriate Domain Name
  • Present your Company and Build your Website
  • Build your Ecommerce store
  • Establish credibility through valuable Content
  • Promote your Website
  • Start Selling and Communicating with your visitors and customers

We will go in detail about each of the topics in a few moments. But before we do that – you will save lots of time if you have a clear vision of your business goals, purpose of your company and so on. If you need to define your goals read this article from an experienced usability firm.

1. Choose a Winning Domain Name for your Business

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  • You can register a Branded Domain Name – like your company name, or a name with major keywords you want to rank for in search engines.
  • Make your domain name short, easy to pronounce and easy to remember.
  • Make sure you do not infringe any trademark laws. Because laws are not so interesting topic, watch a video about it. In just 5 minutes you will learn everything you need to know about domain name laws.

Links from the video:

To check if the name you plan to register is protected go to: United States Patent and Trademark Office

Instructions:

  1. Select Search on the right side of page. New page opens.
  2. Now select New User Search Form.
  3. In the Field Search box enter name you want to check.

For more information read Icann`s Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy.

Register your Domain Name

Once you find your winning name go here to see if its available.

  1. Enter your name in the search box.
  2. Select domain name extension from drop down menu. Dot com – .com is best for commercial sites.
  3. If your name is available – register it right away to prevent anyone from registering it before you!

Buying your business domain name will give you 3 key benefits:

  • Unique place on the web – your domain name will become a synonym for your ecommerce business.
  • Brand Protection – once you own your domain name, the value of your brand is secured with your domain name.
  • Ownership – you become the sole owner of branded domain name and personalized email addresses. You can do anything you want with your domain name!

2. Create a Professional Looking Company Presentation

businessman_laptopBe Professional

Your visitors want to feel they are dealing with a serious company. Give them this feeling with Professional looking Web Templates. You don need to hire a web designer. You get 100 HTML Templates with every domain name ordered with Hosting Residence.

Create a simple and usable Layout

Use tested layout with navigation on left, header (with slogan of your company) on top and additional information in footer.

Create a Company Slogan!

If you don`t have one create it now! Slogan is a short, up to 7 words long, unique statement about your business! This site is full of slogan examples and will give you inspiration for creating yours!

Make good first impression

When people will come for the first time – thats when they will decide if they will come back or leave and never return.

Give your visitors a way to contact you!

Put phone number and email address on every page of your site.

 

Bottom line is to build trust and credibility. If people wont trust you, they wont buy from you. It is as simple as that.

 

I found a great article about Building Trust on Ecommerce Sites you should take a look at.

Part 2 – Secret to Ecommerce Success!

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3. Setup and Configure your Ecommerce store

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You can not compete with Amazon, Ebay and other big players when it comes to selling online. But you can cover a niche and copy their successful techniques. Do you know why these sites are so good? Because they have so many buyers? No. This is a consequence. They are so good because they satisfy their customers and give them so many options!

You can learn from their success and provide your visitors with a pleasant experience:

  • Add good product descriptions to your ecommerce store
  • Back them up with photos and user testimonials – people love user testimonials!
  • Offer various payment options – MasterCard, Visa, Paypal
  • Use the power of outsourcing and let UPS or USPS handle delivery.

Remember: More options you give to your customers more likely they will buy from you.

 

I recommend all my visitors to try Quick Shopping Cart – because it is probably the best ecommerce store for beginners. No technical expertise is required. It has integrated syncronization with QuickBooks® and connects with platforms like Ebay and Froogle in real time.

Building in Quick Shopping Cart is easy and very well documented, so even a total beginner can set advanced features such as special pricing options or taxation.

4. Ecommerce Web Store itself will not get you sales!buy_the_world.jpg

One of the common beginner mistakes is to buy a fancy ecommerce store and wait for sales to come in. It doesn`t work that way! Whatever product you are selling – you are probably competing with hundreds of websites. So how can you beat them and get people to buy your products?

 

YOU CAN ONLY DO IT BY PROVIDING UNIQUE, VALUABLE CONTENT!

 

You have to provide content about the products you are selling. For example: If you are selling wrist watches you need to create content about them. Tell people how they will benefit from them? How to find a perfect watch for water sports, how to pick a watch for a gift and so on. You need to give your visitors something they are highly interested in, something they didn`t know yet.

 

The reason you want to do this, is because people will find your content valuable. They will tell their friends and write about your site on forums. You will get new visitors. Google will see people like your website and will eventually rank you higher for your keywords. This will bring you more visitors and what your goal is – more sales!

 

There is no way to get sales only by buying an ecommerce merchant account. So don`t waste your money with that. What also works is to register the same name as for your web store only with .info extension. You should setup a separate site and write about your products on it. This will definitely give you lots of exposure!

Remember: People Buy from sites they trust so keep adding content and building credibility!

Part 3 – Spread the word and Start selling!

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5. Spread the news about your ecommerce website

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Start by submitting to search engines

  1. Google: Add your URL to Google
  2. Yahoo: Suggest your site to Yahoo
  3. MSN Live Search: Submit to Live Search

Continue with Directories

Free Directories

Try to get listed in DMOZ – it will get you backlinks and hopefully boost your pagerank. But make sure you read the instructions!

Paid Directories

Invest some money into paid ones like Yahoo! and Business.com.

Resources:

List of free and paid directories

Top Web Directories by Inbound Link Quality

Pay Per Click Advertising

If you are a real go-getter you should buy some traffic. Make sure your website can convert visitors into buyers, otherwise its wasted money. Start here to find out more about PPC.

Press Releases

Prepare Press Releases and send them to these websites:

www.pr.com – "Promote everything about your business. We get the word out."
www.prleap.com – "PR LEAP is a free press release distribution service to major search engines, web sites and newswires, since 2003."
www.i-newswire.com – "I-Newswire.com is your free press release distribution center."
www.24-7pressrelease.com – "24-7PressRelease.com is a free press release distribution service with the small to medium size Company in mind."

Here is a tutorial How to Write a Press Release.

6. Communication is the key!

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Email is a powerful way to communicate

  • Create meaningful business email addresses like:
    • Support@yourdomain.com
    • Contact@yourdomain.com
    • Sales@yourdomain.com
  • Set signatures for all emails
  • Answer your emails promptly, completely and with grace! People will remember if you reply them with a stylish email!

Create a Newsletter

Research shows you need to send your prospects over 7 messages before they will place an order. So you might be loosing 90% of your sales if you are not using newsletters.

Don`t be scared by the word newsletter. It doesn`t need to be a dissertation. Just put together a few useful articles of 300-400 words. At the end of newsletter include a link to a product you are promoting or anything you want them to do. Once people will get several positive experiences with you, they will become ready to buy.

Newsletter Software

The best tool for sending out newsletters is Aweber Autoresponder. It is a powerful but simple way to create newsletters. You can send email to 10.000 clients at once!

The tool I recommend to beginners, who don`t need so powerful tool such as Aweber, is Express Email Marketing. It is even easyer to use, but only a fraction of the price of Aweber

Thank you for reading!

Thats an Ecommerce website in a nutshell! I wish you big success with your ecommerce website! And remember: keep communicating with your customers and adding content!

 

Here is a little gift for you:

If you buy a bundle of Domain Name and WebStore from Hosting Residence, you will get a 5% discount!

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To redeem your discount enter "5NC25" at checkout.

 

Break free with your site

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Break free with your site

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This step is called Power Step. This step is a little different … we` re going to talk about YOU.

You see, no matter how many tutorials you read, the ONE ingredient that will make or break your dreams is your own willingness to take action.

 

Over the years I have met many people …all dreamed about starting their own website. And I` ve noticed something very sad.

  • Lot of these dreamers had great ideas
  • They spent endless hours reading, planning, preparing. They also bought books and guides.
  • But they NEVER put their ideas into action.

And here is the fundamental truth: no action, no results.

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How many times over the past weeks or even months have you dreamt about starting your website. Creating your blog, where you could write about things you love. Or starting an online business that would change your life?

 

Well, you can change all that today..

 

Hosting Residence + Web Star Pack = Success!

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Step 1 – How to Create a Website Plan

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1. Set your Site Goals

action.pngAsk yourself what do I want to achieve with my website, what is the purpose of my site. Do I want to build a family website to share photos and movies? Do I need to cover an event like wedding or reunion? Or is it a Blog that i want, to express myself and write about things I love? This are called personal websites. It is easy to create them.

If you have a company you need a business website. The one that would tell your potential customers more about your products and enable them to buy your products online.

You will choose a domain name and hosting depending on your website type so take a moment and decide what kind of website do you want.

2. Can I build a website myself?

Yes. Creating a simple website is easy! People often get turned off, because they don`t know whats involved in creating a site. And they get encouraged when I tell them that it takes less than an hour to create a Blog.

3. Think how would you like your site to look like.

Website Design

I am sure you have seen beautiful websites and thought yourself wow…I would like to have a site that would look like this one. Well you can. There are thousands of fantastic templates you can use. When you spot a website try wo look at it with webmaster eyes. Try to recognize elements like navigation (usually on left or top), content (usually in the middle) and Ad space. This will help you choosing what kind of design you want for your website. Here are some common design layouts:

 

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Website Structure

Things you want to put on your website need to be organized and connected. The very first page you seen when you visit a website is called index or home. This page is very important because it is the first thing your visitors will see. On index page there are links to other pages like about me, contact, site map and others.

 

action.pngTry to draw a tree with index on top and connect it with your topics with lines. It should look like this:

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This will get you a wider look of your project, so you don’t get lost along the way. Here is an great article for those who want to know more about Website planning.

star.pngGreat! I trust you about what kind of website do you want. I know you have followed Action steps and now have a plan about your website. Now I will tell you how to choose a best domain name for your new project.

 

Step 4 – Website Building

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Building your web site with an Online Builder

Online builders are very easy to use. If you know how to use a text editor than you can use any online builder.

Here are instructions how to use an online builder to build a simple website.

  1. Login to your Online Builder with the user name and password provided from your Host (Some Builders are integrated in Hosting Control Panel).
  2. Select the look of your Website. First thing you need to do is select a Template. In some builders you can also select a colors scheme or a header image. This is all customizable and you can always change it later if you wish.
  3. Insert some text. After you selected Template you can add some content into your website. Be sure to prepare your text in a Text Editor on your computer and than just copy/paste it into your new page. In some Online Builders you have to click Edit page or sth. similar to be able to insert text.
  4. Insert images. In the same window you just added some text you can also insert images into your web page. Make sure you have your pictures ready on your computer and then upload it when Online Builder asks you.
  5. Add more pages. Adding pages with Online Builder is easy, since the pages are made from the same template. Just click on create a new page or sth. similar and name it. Than you can edit it, add images, text, etc.
  6. Add-ons. Some online builders allow you to add some advanced elements like forms, photo galleries and more with just a few simple clicks.
  7. See results and Publish. When you are done, click on the Button Preview or sth. similar. You can see what you have made so far. When you are satisfied just click Publish and your website will be online.

guide_notice Note: Online Builders differ from Host to Host so this instructions are informational nature, not an exact tutorial. If you need instructions how to use popular online builders and test demo accounts read this article.

Website Building with a stand alone HTML Editor

Building a Web Site in Html editor requires HTML knowledge.

  1. First you should create a Template you will use across your site. You can also get some for free in our Webmaster Center .
  2. Now duplicate your main page and add as many pages as you need for your website. Make them organized in folders if there is a lot of pages.
  3. Create links to your new pages from the main page and vice-versa.
  4. Add text and images. (Store all images in images folder )
  5. Upload your website to Web Server. You will need a FTP software to do that. You can download it for Free in our Webmaster Center . You will also need login data provided by your Host to access Web Server.

Need instructions how to configure most popular FTP Clients?

Setting DNS Servers

If you registered your Domain Name Separate from Web Hosting you have to set your domain name to point to your files which are saved at your web host. How do I do this?

Here are step by step instructions to configure DNS servers for all popular Registrars.

 

guide_notice Note: It takes 24 to 48 until DNS changes will apply, because your domain registrar has to let servers all over the world know where your new web site is located.

 

What Next?

Learn How to get traffic to your website.

Use Hosting Wizard to find the best Hosting for you.

Step 3 – Choose Hosting Plan

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If you have already selected and registered your domain name, it`s now time to choose a web host.

Take your time Choosing Web Hosting

web hosting server drawing A web host is much more than just provider of space, it is the core of your website and your business. There is not just one host, that is best for every ones needs.

In this step you will learn what hosting type you need for your specific needs, so read it carefully.

After you have seen different options below, I invite you to view comparison of these hosts I created. This will give you better overview of the details and help you with your decision.

Money Back Guarantee

It is important to know that all Web hosting plans below have a money back guarantee. So if you decided that a particular host is not for you, you will get a full refund no questions asked. All of the plans below apply a 30 day money-back guarantee as stated in their Terms of Services.

Important Web Hosting Features

If you want a personal or a business site there are some essential things that all of the plans below have in common:

  • Great customer support anytime you need it
  • High uptime
  • Ability to access your site 24/7
  • Own email accounts
  • Risk free sign up with Money Back Guarantee

I encourage you to check these facts by contacting support and to check company data on other places. Because I don` t want you order web hosting with any of the companies if they are not right for you.

That`s why I recommend you to read this entire guide and contact me if you are in doubts, because I want you to have a positive experience with web hosting.

Web Hosting Option#1: WebSite Tonight®

  • Revolutionary Point and Click building
  • Perfect for Family or Personal sites
  • No programming ever needed!
  • Templates and premium photos included in price

Sign up here or read about this plan below.

Website Tonight® is a fantastic Web hosting plan that has been built for those who don`t know HTML and also don`t want to learn any!

Creating Web pages has never been easier

All you need is point and click. Beginner-friendly Web Tool enables you to start building instantly:

  • You do not need any additional software.
  • You do not need to make or buy templates.
  • You do not need to search for photos, flash intros or add-ons.

It is all prepared for you!

You can even add videos, music or create a chat room with the click of a mouse. You will never have to spend your time installing scripts and learning how to code.

Professionally Designed Templates

This package comes with 800 professionally-designed HTML Templates for you to choose from and includes over 8.000 High Quality Photos you can insert in your website. People are amazed when they see how beautiful templates are and how easy it is to customize them.

With so many premium Photos you will surely make your website stand out from others. And the best thing is, you won`t need to learn any programming.

Website Tonight is perfect for creating almost any kind of personal or business website. Whether it is a Photo Gallery, Company Presentation or a Wedding Website – you can build it with no programming skills or additional software!

Learn more about Website Tonight here.

WebSite Tonight Pricing

There are 3 different packages to choose from (starting at $7.95).

How To Sign Up

When registering your domain name, select one of the WebSite Tonight packages as your hosting option on the order form.

Sign up for WebSite Tonight Hosting.

Web Hosting Option#2: Hosting Only

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  • For intermediate users
  • LOTS of Web Space
  • Free, Add-on applications
  • Great for expanding sites

Sign up here or read about this plan below.

This package is best for those who plan to build their website on their own, because it doesn`t provide any web building tools. If you don`t have a HTML editor yet, you can buy Dreamweaver to create your pages.

Extras

However, with Hosting Residence you are not left on your own. This plan comes with Web Star Pack, a package of books, tools and templates. You will get 100 HTML Web Templates, you can customize and upload instantly. (You can download templates immediately after your order).

Features

There are 3 plans to choose from and all enable you to create interactive features such as blog, forum, photo galleries, but you will need to set them on your own. Don`t worry, you have an extensive knowledge base and support available 24/7.

Check some of the features here.

Hosting Residence Pricing

There are 3 different packages to choose from (starting at $4.95).

How To Sign Up

When registering your domain name, select one of the Hosting Residence hosting plans on the "hosting section" of the order form.

Click here to sign up for Hosting Residence Plan.

Web Hosting Option#3: Quick Shopping Cart®

  • The best E-commerce solution
  • Revolutionary Point and Click technology
  • Accept Credit Cards
  • QuickBooks® Synchronization
  • Turnkey System

Sign up here or read about this plan below.

Everything you need to run a successful online store is right here in this package, for a price, you can`t beat if you bought these things on your own.

Design

With Online Web Builder, similar to Website Tonight®, you can create your Web store in just 6 steps. It is as simple as point and click. Just choose from Pre-designed Templates and enter your products. No programming skills needed!

E-commerce

Once you add products to your store, you have total control over them. You can easily define prices, discounts and track order status. Your online store is MasterCard and Visa certified, SSL enabled and secured with Fraud Module for advanced protection.

General Features

Whether you provide hard goods or digital products, Quick Shopping Cart® enables you with Shipping service to U.S. addresses (UPS® and USPS®). It has been built with connectivity in mind, and enables you to synchronize with QuickBooks®, eBay & Froogle™.

No matter what kind of web store you need, Quick Shopping Cart® is so powerful that it is perfect for beginners and customizable enough for advanced users.

Support

If this features look a little overwhelming, don`t worry. They have it all covered in their knowledge base and their support is ready to help you.

Learn more about Quick Shopping Cart® here.

Quick Shopping Cart® Pricing

There are three plans to choose from, starting at $12.99 per month.

Click here to purchase Quick Shopping Cart®.

Are you wondering which Hosting Plan is Best for You?

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You have just read 3 hosting options listed by their features. Let`s sum up:

 

Web Hosting Option#1 – WebSite Tonight – For Beginners

If you want to build a personal or professional site quickly and easily than this option is for you. Remember, 800 Beautiful templates, and all you need to do is point and click.

Many people use WebSite Tonight for creating a Family Site, because they are so easy to create and maintain. Beginners just Love it. See WebSite Tonight Product Tour if you haven`t already.

 

Web Hosting Option#2 – Hosting Residence – For Intermediate Users

If you only need Web hosting and you will build website on your own, this is for you. Remember: With every order you get a Web Star Bonus Pack!

Web Hosting Option#3 – Quick Shopping Cart® – For Online Business

For those of you that want to start an online business this is a real winner. In just six easy steps, build and publish a stand-alone store with turnkey credit card processing and shipping. Order now.

 

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Now that you have a a web hosting account and a domain name, its time to link them together and start building. Let`s go to next step!

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Quick Website Creating Overview

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Intention of this page is to show you the big picture of website development process. There`s a lot of information on this site, which can be too much to bite in one chunk.


That`s why You should read this web site overview once without clicking on links, or even better – print it and read it on paper. When you understand the process of website development, go back and follow the links that will guide you to create your new website.

1. Plan your Website

Website Planning is very important because it clears many things. For instance personal website needs different hosting that business website. If you rush and buy hosting first you could realize that you made a wrong choice. So plan your website first!

2. Domain name

domain name guide httpWhat it is?

Every website needs a domain name. It is a unique name that identifies a Web site. www.EasySiteGuide.com is an example of a Domain Name.

Domain names can be registered for a minimum of 1 and maximum of 10 years and during that time you have the right to do whatever you want with your domain.

 

How to choose it?

Well selected domain name will bring you lots of traffic. So before you register it be sure to know how to choose the best domain name.

action step register domain name

My advice: Register your Domain Name TODAY! Thousands of names are being registered every day and your name could be taken right now if you wait!

3. Web Host

You will need a Web Host to store your files. Hosting companies or Web Hosts are constantly connected to Internet with high speed lines, enabling You to rent some space for your website.

There is not just one type of web hosting, so it is very important that you choose the most appropriate for your site. Use our Hosting Wizard to find the best one for you.

4. Building Your Website

Last part of website development is to build your website and put it online.

website development tools photoWith Online Builder

You will also need some tools to build your site. Most popular and easier way to create a Website is using an Online Builder. It is as easy as clicking and filling text. In Step 3 you will learn how to use Online Builders to create your website and how to Install a Blog with just a few clicks.

 

With HTML Editor

Another way of building a website is with HTML Software. You have surely heard of Microsoft Frontpage or Adobe Dreamweaver. These are two popular website creation programs people use to create websites. If you want to learn HTML here are some great resources.

If you want your website to look great, but you have no clue how to design it, download our HTML templates from Webmaster Center. They are totally FREE! All you have to do is open them in a HTML editor and fill in your content.

 

guides_uploadUploading your site to Web Server

When you are finished with your work you have to upload files to your web host. For that you will need a FTP program. We will teach you how to do that in Step 3.

 

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Try to understand this quick website overview as a compass that will guide you through development process of your web site.

Step 2 – Choose and Reserve domain name

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Domain Name Basics and How to reserve a Domain Name

The first stone of your website »palace« begins when you reserve domain name. I suggest you read this page through and understand it ENTIRELY, because it contains important information, that you have to know before you register.

guide_noticeIf you already know about domain names, reserve domain name here .

What is a domain name ?

domain name http image Domain name is a unique name that identifies an Internet site. Just like house numbers, every web site has its own number. Since it is hard to remember a number like http://255.154.255.xxx people have invented domain names that are linked to these numbers. The web address for this site is easysiteguide.com.

Each domain name or web address has two parts:

  1. The label. It can be up to 63 characters long containing letters or numbers.
  2. The extension is what follows after a .dot. The most common extensions are .com, .net, .org, .biz, and .info.

What comes with a domain name?

Domain name has 2 functions: it is the name of your website and it is the name of your email. A lot of people don`t know that when you reserve domain name lets say yourname.com you are also entitled to all the emails with that name.

 

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Notice –Number of emails depend on your web hosting provider. I will tell you everything you need to know about hosting in Step 2.

Great! Now you know technical details, but what name should you choose?

Free Ebooks and 100+ Web Templates
with every Domain Name Registered!

See below for details.

 

Choose the best name for your site

For personal/family site: You could register your last name as your domain name. This will give you nice little feature – you could give all your family members an email with unique structure like this: yourname@familyname.com

For business website there are 2 options:

  1. If you want to be found in major search engines and get lots of traffic than you should choose domain name that has top keywords in it. What search engines do is they first look if there are some websites containing keywords users have searched for. And if you own domain name that consists of that keywords, BAM! you will have free traffic coming in from search engines. actionCheck for yourself – type any keyword in google and you will see that in top 10 results there is always some website with keywords you have searched for in their domain name.
  2. If your business is local based and you have no advantage of traffic coming from all over the world you should register a company name. That way you can grow your brand name in specific area.

How to register a domain name ?

Reserving a web address is easy and inexpensive. Yes there are some registrars that charge over $30, but their domain names are not better because they are more expensive. You can save a lot at HostingResidence.com and get a package of free Templates with it.

Get support When you need it

It is very important that you get support when you need it. Hosting Residence has one of the best support systems online. With extensive knowledge base, guides and video tutorials you can count on answers. In case you need to discuss in person, they are available 24/7 to answer all of your questions. Email support is also available for those who prefer email support.

Free Web Star Launch with Every Order

No matter what you order from Hosting Residence (domain name, hosting, emails), they will give you a free ebook called Web Star Launch.

Web Star Launch is a short, but extremely valuable book that has been written for beginners. It will enable you to launch your website in less than 48 hours!

Note: you can download this book immediately after you` ve placed your order.

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100 Free Web Templates

Creating a professionally looking web template is not an easy task to do. Especially for beginners. Hosting Residence understands that, so they offer you 100 great looking HTML Web Templates.

You simply choose design you want and insert your text into it. All templates come with setup instructions.

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Note: You can download templates immediately after you place your order.

 

More Free Stuff

When You register your domain name with Hosting Residence, you also get the following free:

  • FREE! Online Photo Filer
  • FREE! Blog
  • FREE! Free Hosting
  • FREE! Complete Email
  • FREE! Forwarding / Masking
  • FREE! Change of Registration
  • FREE! Starter Web Page
  • FREE! "For Sale"/ Parked Page
  • FREE! Domain Name Locking
  • FREE! Total DNS Control

It`s time to Register your Domain Name!

Before you go on with this Guide, register your domain name. You don`t want your domain name to be taken by someone else, because you waited for too long.

P.S: Contact me if you need any help about the name.

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When you have a domain name, 3rd step of Beginner Guide is waiting for you. Lets go!