Domains

Discount Domains hosting specialises in high-speed, responsive, full-featured web hosting for any web site needs. Each of our hosting plans gives you assurance of 99.9% up-time and fast access to your web site.

With Discount Domains's hosting, it is more than just a matter of how much disk space and bandwidth/traffic quotas - it's about service, detail and the features your site needs.

Each of our plans comes with:

Free setup
Free POP3 Mail Boxes
Web based Mail
Generous bandwidth to handle heavy loads
Free Web logging and statistics
MS FrontPage Extensions
PHP included

Choose the plan that suits your needs from our

Bronze plan (for the beginner/novice)
Silver plan (for the web designer)
Gold plan (for the professional web developer)

Our sister company Search solutions, has been active in the Search Engine Optimisation market industry since 2002, we have more than 20 years combined experience, and can demonstrate results to prove it.

We aim to improve and sustain your rankings on the leading search engines in particular Google. We are strictly a "white hat" company which means we work within the Search Engine's guidelines and do not look for short cuts. In our experience it takes hard work and patience to achieve high rankings, but the results are worth it.

Search Engine Optimisation or SEO is our speciality.

Online Marketing

Link Popularity Campaigns

Web Site Redesign

SEO Copywriting

Web Design

We achieve our results by working on the text of each page of your site to ensure that the pages of your sites are as focussed as possible and therefore as relevant as possible to your chosen key phrases.

We also work to promote your link popularity by listing in strong directories, creating business networking sites, forum and blog postings. Over time this increases the authority of a web site so helping to increase rankings.

We normally work with established sites, re-focussing them to be search engine ready, then promoting them actively. For the highly competitive areas we do long term campaigns which involve either a redesign or a new site built. Then we would actively promote it full time. Part of the ongoing work would be writing fresh content, building your link popularity, distributing articles etc. This works well for larger companies that want to completely outsource the work.

Domain Reselling and the Benefits

The number of online businesses is growing daily so why not capitalise on the accelerating need for web presence and why not do it via one of the most popular and growing forms; through the idea of domain reselling.

Domain resellers provide registration of available domain names for clients and often engage in the process of acquiring expired domains from a drop register for later resale. It has also often been said that domain resellers often give better customer service than regular registrars. One other advantage that domain resellers have is that they are able to provide discounted prices for the domains that they are selling as part of the reseller programme (after buying them wholesale from the registrar) they then pass along the savings to the customers. Domain resellers have become very successful by offering these lower prices, and the competition among resellers has driven the price of domain names down.

In recent times the idea of domain reselling has expended and many domain resellers are now stand alone businesses; however in order to start a domain reseller business you need to find an ICANN Accredited Registrar who offers a reseller programme.

As the Internet has expanded to include many website, which include personal and business; the field of domain name reselling has grown. This idea of domain reselling was then made extremely popular by aspects such as web design companies. Many of these web design companies then partner with an ICANN accredited domain name registrar. These companies began to sell domain names directly to their own clients using their partner's registrar system.

There are many advantages and benefits that domain resellers can offer you such as the following:

------ Low trade prices. This is because you set your own profit margin
------ Customer privacy. Most domain resellers will never contact your customers directly
------ You will usually get a user friendly control panel
------ With many domain resellers you will be given UK based telephone support
------ You will gain a dedicated account manager, meaning you will never feel frustrated dealing with an anonymous account representative
------ Dedicated reseller team, meaning you work with people who know the reseller business
------ Proven track record. Most domain resellers should be able to prove this
------ Your domain reseller will be based in the UK, meaning you are at the hub and connected to the rest of the world

A domain reseller is a person or company reselling domains for their own brand. Domains are normally sold in combination with hosting packages/plans, so most domain reseller sell hosting packages as well.

With many, if not most domain resellers you will be given a user interface through which you are able to register, renew and transfer domain names using the registrar's own system. Often they are also provided with software to create their own branded interface to present to clients, which allows for domain name search and registration from the seller's own site. Resellers generally receive highly discounted rates from the registrar because of the volume of transactions they process. This enables the reseller to set competitive prices for their registrations while still making a profit.

Helen is the web master of Discount Domains, specialists in all aspects of Domain Reselling.

What is Web Hosting?

Web Hosting is a service which allocates space for customers to showcase their websites on servers that are connected to the Internet 24/7. These servers are powerful computers that have extremely large hard drives or an array of hard drives. Web Hosting is initially a space that is rented to a person who wants a 'website presence.'

Web hosting empowers you and anyone with a computer and internet connection to own a piece of cyberspace. Web hosting provides you, at a minimum, storage space on a server and bandwidth, which allows the data (webpages and images) stored on this server to be transferred to anyone viewing the data. The more expensive the web hosting packages the more services that are included in it.

The scope of hosting services varies widely; however whichever hosting service you get you will gain a basic web page and a small scale file hosting in which files can be uploaded via file transfer protocol (FTP) or a web interface.

With most, if not all web hosting companies you will receive the following services:

----- Storage space
The physical disk space on a server where your website data (pages, images, scripts, e-mails etc) is stored
----- Bandwidth
The Internet traffic and the networking infrastructure needed to deliver the traffic to users of your website
----- E-mail accounts
E-mail boxes where you can send and receive e-mail. Often many other e-mail service variations are provided as well
----- Technical support
A staff of support technicians to help you with general service usage issues and other problems as they arise
----- Scripting support
The ability to run scripts (small programs that perform certain tasks) on the server
----- Backup services
A service that makes a copy of your website data in case of accidental deletion or other emergency situation

As well as web hosting packages, which are primarily used by individuals, there are also web hosting packages for professional purposes. These packages offer commercial aspects, which include business tools and point of sale packages as well as credit card processing. This shows that there are more considerations when it comes to web hosting companies than just price. Some hosting services have policies that restrict certain content, scripting languages, functions or uses. One consideration that you should always keep in mind when it comes to web hosting companies is you should always read the privacy policy of any hosting service that you are considering, to see how they will use the personal information you provide to them in setting up your account.

Another aspect that many web hosting companies take into consideration is the fact that many people may need support when it comes to setting up a website. Due to this fact many companies provide access to a help service that is available either within working hours or in some cases 24 hours a day.

If you are currently in need of a web host it is vital that you go with a company who can provide you with all of the services that you require without overcharging you for using them.

Helen is the web master of Discount Domains, specialists in all aspects of Web Hosting.

We have been working hard to create a new look design which is keeping with the old site. The site will be going live soon.

A domain reseller is someone who buys domains from a domain registrar and resells them onto clients at a discount price. Domain resellers have become more and more popular as more and more web design, internet marketing and SEO companies start up. Most domain resellers will give you a nice and simple user interface which will make registering, renewing and transferring domains quick and simple. Sometimes this interface is linked to the registrars system, but either way you will have complete control over your domains. Many resellers also offer hosting packages which will also be accessible via the user interface.

To become a domain reseller you just need to find an ICANN Accredited Registrar which offers a reseller programme. ICAAN stands for International Corporation for Assigned names and Numbers. It is a no-profit corporation created in 1988 to oversee Internet related tasks that were previously done by the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) on behalf of the US Government. Basically ICANN are responsible for IP addresses and domain names as well of lots of other internet tasks.

Becoming a domain reseller has plenty of benefits. Because they buy the domains off a registrar (generally in bulk) at discounted prices, this means they can then resell them to their clients much cheaper than the registrars. With domain resellers you often get UK based telephone support with good customer service. You will also get customer privacy because most domain resellers will not contact customers directly, where as most domain registrars will try to sell you other products and you might get the odd email reminding you to pay this and that.

If you are interested in either starting up your own domain reseller business or you are hoping to enlist the help of an established domain reseller then it is important that you look around before settling as this way you will get the best possible deal. There are literally hundreds of reseller programs available so get comparing and you will sure to find the right programme that suits you.

Web design is a lot more than just producing the perfect looking website but sadly many people don't realise this and as a result they don't build and design their website with anything other than making it visually appealing in mind, which is a big mistake!

The main reasons that people produce websites are either to make a profit, provide information on a subject area or to entertain. So if you want you website to be truly successful at what it does then there are certain points that you need to take into consideration when it is being designed. These points are as follows and are mainly concerned with if you are producing your website for the reason of profit:

Your site has to have a good navigation; people won't be patient enough to struggle finding their way around your site
If your business offers a large range of products or services then the most prominent of these should be on display the most
You need to clearly demonstrate what it is that your business has to offer
The points of contact for your website should be clearly visible to the browsers of your website
Your website should not be cluttered with useless information
The text that is placed on your website needs to be inviting to read

Just by applying these simple rules to your website you will be giving your business more of a chance of being successful; however not many websites seem to put these points together with a good website design.

Having a website designed in the correct way means it is accessible and usable as well as being search engine ready. Good website design can apply to your site if it is new or if you feel that it needs a new design. Sadly many websites suffer from lack of design variation, a lack of imagination and/or development ability. For this reason it is considered important to design individual sub-pages for some of the issues your website addresses. These can help your site from getting stale and we make sure they are not too different from one another, so as not to confuse potential customers.

Many of the web developers around have a graphic arts background, meaning they may pay more attention to how a page looks rather than considering other issues such as how visitors are going to find your site via a search engine. Some might rely more on advertising than search engines to attract visitors to the site. On the other side of the issue, search engine optimisation consultants are concerned with how well a web site works technically and textually: how much traffic it generates via search engines, and how many sales it makes, assuming looks don't contribute to the sales. As a result, the designers and SEO consultants often end up in disputes where the designer wants more 'pretty' graphics, and the SEO wants lots of 'ugly' keyword-rich text, bullet lists, and text links.

So when you are having your website built or if your website is undergoing a redesign make sure that you keep the above points in mind to ensure that your site has every possibility of being successful.

Helen is the web master of Discount Domains, who are experts in all aspects of Web Design, get in touch today to find out more.

The abbreviation known as DNS stands for domain name servers. They are an important but invisible part of the Internet. But first let me tell you a little bit about domain names.

A domain name is what appears on the address bar of an Internet page such as www.example.com. It is the address of the website that you are visiting. Your domain name is highly important to the success of your website; for a start your domain name should reflect what your business is about. So if you are in the business of selling phones your domain name should ideally have the word phone in it. This is because if someone conducts a search for phones your website will have more of a chance of appearing if you have this keyword in the address of your website.

New domain names are usually registered through the registrar for annual terms with a minimum of one year. The maximum length of prepaid registration is often 10 years, but varies depending on the policies of the sponsoring registry of the top-level domain under which registration is sought. Registration periods may be extended, usually at any time, until the end of a grace period after the registration expiration date. Domain names should also be kept short and should be something that is easy to remember so that people will be more likely to type your websites address into their browser.

Your domain name doesn't actually appear as words, well it does to us but the actual name of your website is a 32 bit number, for example 199.249.130.4. Every website on the Internet has a number like this, they are known as the sites IP address. As well as every site having an IP address, every computer that is connected to the Internet also has their own IP address. The reason that these IP addresses are changed into words is simply down to the fact that words are easier to remember. It is difficult to remember IP addresses, especially with how many IP addresses there actually are. Think about all of the sites that you visit daily, if these sites were all named with numbers would you be able to remember them all? The vast majority of us certainly couldn't!

So when you type a websites address into your browser why doesn't it appear as numbers, how does the computer find the site you are looking for? This is where a domain name server comes in. A domain name server converts the IP address of websites into words. The flexibility of the domain name system allows multiple IP addresses to be assigned to a single domain name, or multiple domain names to be services from a single IP address. This means that one server may have multiple roles (such as hosting multiple independent websites), or that one role can be spread among many servers. One IP address can also be assigned to several servers, as used in any cast networking.

To find out more information about domain name servers get in touch with a web hosting company today.

Helen is the web master of Discount Domains, specialists in all aspects of Domain Names and Domain Resellers.

E-marketing helps you to use digital technologies to sell your goods and services. It is a valuable complement to traditional marketing methods regardless of the size of your company. E-marketing gives businesses of any size access to the mass market at an affordable price, which allows them to undertake truly personalised marketing.

Marketing has been around in one form or another for about the same time as trading itself. Over the year's methods of marketing have changed and improved to the point that E-marketing is growing faster than any other form of marketing.

Within your E-marketing you need to identify your target audience and in the process you need to gain an understanding of their requirements and expectations. If you don't do this then you won't grasp who you are trying to reach with your marketing and you could end up targeting the wrong aspects within your marketing plan.

Marketing is essential to your business, especially if you have your website as a way of making profit. Most people build a website so that they can get their products or services out there to people who would normally have never heard of the business before. The Internet opens your business prospects up and means that you have the whole world as potential customers. This sounds all well and good but just how many of the worlds population are going to find let alone use your website if you don't have a high placement within the search engine results page? I'll answer this for you, not many. You need your website to be listed high within the search engines in order for people to use your business and the main way of getting your business to rank high in the search engines as well as getting people to use your business is through E-marketing.

The basic principles of marketing have remained within E-marketing. It is all about delivering the right message to the right people in an ethical manner. Many businesses are producing great results with e-marketing and its flexible and cost-effective nature makes it particularly suitable for small businesses.

Internet marketing ties together creative and technical aspects of the Internet, including design, development, advertising, and sales. Internet marketing does not simply entail building or promoting a website, nor does it mean placing a banner ad on another website. Effective Internet marketing requires a comprehensive strategy that synergizes a given company's business model and sales goals with its website function and appearance, focusing on its target market through proper choice of advertising type, media, and design.

E-marketing is an application of principles and techniques via an electronic media, which basically means the Internet. E-marketing could be the difference between your business being a success or a failure so I highly recommend that you put this on your agenda, even if you can't perform it yourself, hire someone to do it for you! There are numerous search engine optimisation teams around who will be more that happy to perform your E-marketing for a set fee.

Helen is the web master of Discount Domains, who can provide you with an E-Marketing service on behalf of your website.

A Web site is a collection of information about a particular topic or subject. Designing a web site is defined as the arrangement and creation of web pages that in turn make up a web site. A web page consists of information for which the web site is developed. A web site might be compared to a book, where each page of the book is a web page. In typical examples of web pages they are either classified as static or dynamic.

With static web pages it generally means that these web pages don't change their content or layout with every request. If these web pages need changing or up-dates need to be made to them they have to be done manually by a web professional or programmer who will go into the site and update whatever pages need to be done. This can become a challenge if you are busy running other aspects of your business, which is why if you want you website to be made up of static web pages you should enlist the help of a web designer who will have the time and knowledge to be able to perform manual updates frequently on your website.

Dynamic pages on the other hand adapt their content and appearance depending on the end users input or interaction. With dynamic pages content can be changed on the client side by using client-side scripting languages (JavaScript, JScript, Actionscript, media players and PDF reader plug-ins, etc.) to alter DOM elements (DHTML). Dynamic content is often compiled on the server utilizing server-side scripting languages (PHP, ASP, Perl, Coldfusion, JSP, Python, etc.). Both approaches are usually used in complex applications.

As the Internet has grown and advanced so has web design and in the process mark-up language has changed to become more complex but also flexible, which allows you to add aspects such as images and tables to a web page.

Before creating and uploading a website, it is important to take the time to plan exactly what is needed in the website. You should also thoroughly consider the audience or target market, as well as defining the purpose of your site and deciding what content will be developed are extremely important. When you are looking at the purpose of your website you should note down what you hope to achieve with your website and what users of your website will benefit from it. After defining the purpose of your website you should go onto describing the audience of your site this is because you need to know who you are aiming your website at and you need to known what your audience is looking for within your website.

The purpose and audience of your website should be reflected through the content of your website. When you are thinking about what content to place on your website you need to evaluate and organise what content needs to be placed on your site. Anything that doesn't fit the purpose of your site or that doesn't reflect your target audience should be removed from your site.

If you want the best from the design of your site then you should enlist the help of a web design company who will be able bring out the best in your site and as a result you will get more traffic to your site.

Helen is the web master of Discount Domains, specialists in all aspects of Web Design.

Before the birth of the Internet if we needed information we would head to the library and search through hundreds of books until we found ones that we wanted. Today if we need to find anything out we simply turn on our computers and connect to the Internet. Once we are on the Internet we then merely search for what we want and within seconds you are presented with a massive list of choices.

The term keyword stands for a word or concept which holds special significant. They are used to capture the essence of a topic or document. These keywords are present in websites so that when someone searches for a particular word or phrase within the search engines the site with the keyword present will appear in the search engine results.

Keywords are highly used within search engine optimisation. It is because of these keywords that your website appears within the top of the search engine results pages. When you are placing the content on your website it should be wrote with keywords in mind. If your website is a clothes store for example you should have words such as clothing, shoes and accessories running throughout your site so that when someone types women's clothes into a search engine your site has a higher chance of appearing at the top of the search engine results because your keywords match the words that have been typed into a search engine.

The basis of all search engine rankings is keywords. Yes, search engines employ all kinds of technology that is beyond the average person's comprehension but it all mainly comes down to words. Search engine users type these words or phrases into a search engine to find the information that they need. So if you are a website owner who is hoping to get your website listed in the top 20 search engine results and you are wondering where to start, I recommend that you start with keywords. In order to give your website the best chance of climbing the search engine results you need to know what keywords people are using within search engines in the hope of finding products or services that best match the ones on offer from your business. To do this you need to put yourself in the mind of your customer; you need to think about what you would type into a search engine to find your products or services. Only when you have figured this out can you really start to promote your website.

Keyword Research is the building block for search engine optimisation. Search engines utilise keywords or key phrases to identify web pages which are relevant to these terms. Finding keywords which are relevant to your website and placing them on your website as well as your links will help a search engine identify your webpage when a search is conducted for that particular keyword.

You need to keep in mind that the keywords you will be targeting with also be used by your competitors so you will be in competition with thousands of other sites; all of you fighting after the same customers so it may be a good idea to enlist the help of an SEO company to help promote your site to get to those sought after top spots.

Helen is the web master of Discount Domains, specialists in all aspects of Domain Names and Search Engine Optimisation.

While you are carrying out your website design you should put yourself in the position of a visitor to your site and look at it from their point of view. If you are able to do this you will give yourself a good idea of the weak and good points of your website, which will enable you to improve your site in a way that will generate more traffic to it.

Web design is a highly important aspect and has many functions such as giving your website more of a chance to appear in the top spots in the search engine results and as a means of drawing more visitors into your website; however getting people to click on your URL is just the first step, after this you have to get them to stay there long enough for them to use your business. Without good website design no one will stay on your site for longer than a few seconds. You need a website that is visually appealing and functional; you might have the most beautifully designed site ever but if you have poor navigation you are losing out on thousands of customers.

The navigation of your site is so important to its usability. Someone is much more likely to use a website that is easy to navigate but not that pleasing on the eye as oppose to a site that is graphically stunning but impossible to navigate. My point here is that web design comes down to a lot more than just being nice to look at. Your design covers the structure of your site. So when you are designing the navigation of your site remember that you need to ensure that links are consistent throughout your site and that your main navigation bar is present on all of your websites pages. This makes your website user friendly and will mean people are more likely to stick around long enough on your site to buy your products or services.

One thing that you should avoid when you are designing your website is clutter. This is essential when it comes to the layout of your web design. All of the text and pictures that you are using within your website should be placed carefully and any links that you have placed on a page of your website should be highlighted so that people know exactly where to click. If you have a global market, your web design should include buttons where translations for your web pages are available.

Going back to the idea of text and graphics on your site you need to ensure that the text that you have placed on your site is the right amount to get your message across; you need to sum up aspects of your business in a few words. Once you have done this you need to place your text on the site, which should be placed in a separate colour to the background of your site. The graphics on your website should be neatly placed and not overpowering. They should draw your eye into the text that is placed on your site.

Building a website can be a demanding job for beginners, which is why if you are going to create a website for your business that you should enlist the help of a web designer who will be able to design your website with experience, at a faster pace and in a way that will broaden your horizons with the best way of approaching web design. By enlisting the help of a professional you are giving your online business the best possible chance.

Helen is the web master of Discount Domains, who can provide you with specialist Web Design for all of your needs.