If you’re getting started in an internet business there’s a few services you should sign up for. Even if you have some of these services elsewhere, in most cases you will be best off moving everything to this setup. A lot can go wrong with this stuff and you want to spend as much time on your business as possible with as little time as possible on the technology. I’ve had this conversation with enough people that I’ve now decided to put it into a blog post.
1. Domain name: namecheap. You need a domain name of your own. I host using name cheap. Its cheap and reliable.
2. Your website should be hosted on WordPress.com This will let you map your domain name properly and make it very easy for you to edit your site.
3. Google apps email. Get a business account which gives you email + a host of other services. This will avoid a huge number of problems such as getting your email delivered. Your email will be all set up using your domain name. Its also a good idea to start using:
- google docs (replacements for word, excel, etc) inside google apps – as your team grows it will make collaboration easy.
- google drive (similar to dropbox), making filesharing easy.
4. icontact. To connect with your customers you should be using email regularly. I use icontact.
5. Facebook / twitter. Everyone tends to start with these. Social media is good. Just make sure you have the rest as well.
You can hire a company to get everything set up. There are lots out there.
With a setup like this you’ll be stable, have to spend a minimum of time on technology and can focus on building your business.
Update: one of the nice things about this setup is all security is handled by other people. So you don’t have to worry about things like this.