Before you decide on getting your business online you have to first make sure that the name of your company is available for domain name registration. If you are a business solely based in South Africa then it would be a good idea to register a .co.za domain name as that will immediately identify and portray you as a South African business. If you want a more international exposure it would be advisable to get a .com or .net domain name.

The best place to see if your .co.za domain name is available is to visit co.za/whois.shtml . Once there, you are able to type in your desired name and search to see if it is available or not. If it is not available it will show you the details of who owns that domain. If the domain is available it will let you know that you can go ahead and register that domain name. Read the rest of this entry »

In today’s ever competitive business environment, one needs the slightest advantage to be a success and such a small thing as your email address can be the difference between getting that deal or not.

A couple of years ago when the internet was really taking off, almost everyone signed up to have a free web based email. Most of us signed up to Hotmail or Yahoo. It was very convenient at the time and a great way to communicate with people across the world. Free web based email is still very big today with millions of subscribers to Hotmail, Yahoo and GMail. This free web based email was primarily meant for individuals but businesses also decided to use this service to have an email address for their business. At that time that was perfectly acceptable and one would not be shy to say my business email address is mycompanyname@hotmail.com . Read the rest of this entry »