Helpful Tips

Our Helpful Tips section is designed to provide useful information to our clients, as well as visitors. Drop in here for regular updates and new sections. We will soon be inserting some info here for brand marketing as well as Online Marketing. Click on any of the list below for more...

Starting a business
Get Online

Starting a business

Deciding to start your own business may have been the hardest part but knowing what to do and having a map of where to go will help tremendously.
To start a business, you first need to decide on:

1. Identiyfing your product or services and your market;
   What product or service you will provide and identify the market you will provide the product/service to. Also knowing and recognizing your competitors early on, can be a huge advantage because you can identify what is missing in the industry and the difference your business could bring to the market.
   
   
2. What business structure should you choose
   Choosing a business structure is very important and each individual should choose the options carefully. It depends on the activity of the business, the cost to set it up as well as the tax implications of each individual and your future plans for the direction of your business. The types of business structures available are:
   1. Sole trader
   2. Partnership
   3. Company
   4. Trust
   Click here for more info from ATO's website
   
   
3. How do I choose a business name or company name?

To market your business well, the right business or company name is critical. The right name can create the right image for your business, as well as market your product or service more effectively.

Names for business can come from a number of avenues, some suggestions of ideas include:

• Owner's name or combination of names
• Attributes of individual or group of individuals
• Your product and or service
• Your market and their interest
• The medium you use to sell your product and or service
• Your competitors or the difference between your competitors and your business.

The national names index is where you can find the index of company and business names so you can see what names are not already registered and which ones are available for regsitration.
http://www.search.asic.gov.au

Finally now that you have decided on the name and have done all the necessary paper work, promotion of your business can now start. List of things you will need include

1. Emails and necessary contacts
2. Company branding including your business identity and your logo.
3. Business cards and stationary with all the necessary contacts
4. Marketing materials including traditional print promotional materials like brochures and phamplets and online materials like your website

For more information on how to start a business. Go to: http://www.business.gov.au/Business+Entry+Point/

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Get Online

1. Resigtering your domain name

The first task of getting online is to register for your business domain name. If you want a .com, .net, .org, .gov ending, you will have to find out if the name you want is available. For those domain names, there are many vendors that have a website where you can register your preferred domain name. To start looking for a vendor, this is a good place to start www.enom.com

If you want a domain name that ends with a ".au" i.e. "www.yourdomainname.com.au" , you might require a product or a business name registered under the domain name. Not everyone can have a ".au" domain because these names are reserved for businesses, companies and associations trading in Australia. If you would like more information about registering a domain name that ends with an ".au", you can find out the guidelines here http://www.auda.org.au/register

Note! When you apply for your domain, please remember to keep your registry key details or domain name passwords. This is important in future if you need any to make any changes.

2. Finding the right Web Hosting

The next step is to find someone to host your website. Web hosting refers to a service which holds all the files for your website which includes html and image files. There are many web hosting services available with a wide range of pricing. Your website and your emails are one of the most important contact avenues for your buisness, so it pays to choose a web hosting company. Here are some things to look for to help you choose the right hosting company and the right hosting plan.

Reputable company
It is important that the web hosting company has a good security policy and have a proactive attitude towards securing their servers. In this day and age, many large servers are still vulnerable to malicious security attack, so it is also a good idea to go with a company that has a good backup recovery system and to make sure they do regular backups in close intervals. Another factor which may influence your decision is the location of the servers. If the servers are local, it may contribute to the speed of site and how quickly you get your emails. Local servers could also mean that you will get a quicker response to request.

Webspace
Web Space refers to the amount of space you are allocated for the contents of your website. Depending on the size, different users might require different amount of space depending on their requirements. Some web hosting may give you 10Mb or 100Mb of space. Your webdesigner can advice you on how much space you require.

Web traffic
Other things to consider are traffic. This refers to the amount of traffic on your website, or the amount of activity, of people browsing through your site and downloading files from your site. If you foresee allot of traffic on your website, you might start looking for web hosting that gives you over 1Gb of traffic. This may also include the amount and size of emails you receive.

Email account
It is also a good idea to find out how many email accounts you are entitled to and how much email traffic you can have.

Other function
The next thing which may influence your web hosting is if they give you database functionality or allow you to run scripts on your web space. These functionalities might be important if you would like your website to have dynamic content or a database.

Delegatiom
Once you have established who you want to host your site you can delegate your domain name to point to the purchased web space. Delegation refers to having your domain name point to the web space. You will need some information from your web hosting company to (re)delegate your domain. These are their servers info. (Usually two) which includes the:

1. Primary name server and the IP address
2. Secondary name server and IP address.

Once you have this information, use your registry key or domain name password to log into your domain management area and type in your web-hosting company's web server information.

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