Introduction

Every business today is expected to maintain a web presence and the essential ingredient of  your internet identity is your website. A website is your storefront and showcase on line.
Everything you do on the web, will link back and cross promote your website. You will use your site as an anchor and a hub to which all other marketing channels lead.

You may use a website to drive traffic to your “Brick and Mortar” business (like a hotel or restaurant might do), or use it to sell directly from the site (example www.MarketingOverTheNet.com/oscommerce).
 
Having your own domain and website affords you another great benefit. A permanent email address    yourname@yourwebsite.com
Having your name at your site looks professional and it will remain your email address for the life of the site. You will not be dependent on other services who often change hands or  may go out of business causing you to lose many contacts and business in the process.

Any content that you create and disseminate over the web, most likely will circulate on the web for many years to come. Your email address will be embedded in your products and if you lose that address you will lose the benefit of the leads you worked so hard to generate. The only way to ensure you maintain the same email address is by having your own website with a domain registered to you.

Creating and publishing your website involves three basic elements.

1- Obtaining a “Domain Name”.

2- Creating a site.

3- Hosting the site on a server that is connected to the internet 24/7, making it available to the general public.

For the non techies I like to compare this process to owning a car.
- Having a “domain name” is analogous to having a “Title” to your car.
- A website is analogous to the car itself.
- Hosting the site on a server is analogous to renting a parking garage for the car.