Here are 10 reasons why you have to be online:

1. Launching a web site is the most economical way to open a business.

Millions of dollars can be spent to get a business started. Launching a low-budget web site (started with as little as $1,000) while remaining a viable business.

2. You cut your order fulfillment costs.

Handling orders by phone is expensive, the same for mail orders. There’s no more efficient–cheap, fast, accurate–way to process orders than via a web site. I can help you decide which online shopping cart that will easily manage your orders.

3. Your Product Catalog is always current.

A print product catalog can cost big bucks, and nobody wants to order a reprint just to change one price or to correct a few typos. A Web site can be updated in minutes. I can make your web site editable with user-name and password for easy text updates.

4. High printing and mailing costs are history.

Your customers can download any information you want them to have from your web site. Sure, you’ll still want to print some materials, but lots can be distributed via the web.

5. You cut staffing costs.

A web site can be a low-manpower operation.

6. You can stay open 24 hours daily.

And you’ll still get your sleep because your site will be open even when your eyes are closed.

7. You’re in front of a global audience.

Watch your site log, and you may see visitors streaming in from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Malaysia–wherever there are computers and phone lines.

8. There are no city permits and no hassles.

It could change, but in most parts of the country, small web businesses can be run without permits and with little government involvement. As you expand and add employees, you’ll start to bump into laws and regulations, but it’s certainly nice to be able to kick off a business without first filling out reams of city and state forms.

9. There are no angry customers in your face.

You can’t ignore unhappy customers in any business; in fact, how well you deliver customer service will go far toward determining how successful you are. But at least with a web business you’ll never have to stand eyeball-to-eyeball with a screamer.

10. It’s easy to get your message out.

Between your web site and your smart use of e-mail, your strategic use of social media marketing, you’ll have complete control over when and how your message goes out. You can’t beat a web site for its immediacy, and when a site is done well, it’s hard to top its ability to grab and hold the attention of potential customers.

A domain name is an Internet Web site address. With similar reasons that you have an address to the location of your residence, so does each and every Web site.

A good domain name is essential. It should be closely related to your business name or slogan. Your domain name should also be easy to remember so that people can find your site easily online. Having a registered domain name with a live Web site is the first priority for a marketing. It is a wonderful inexpensive way to get your business name and information in front of the public.

Another reason to register a domain name or more domain names is to protect copyrights and trademarks, secure unique product names and increase branding awareness with the public.

A web page is a computer file. When you or your designer builds a web page, you save it as a file on your computer. If the file remains on your computer, the only way anyone will see it is if they’re on your computer looking at it.

To get the web page files visible on the internet, you need to rent space on a computer that specializes in serving the files across the internet to “host” your web page files for you.

To get your web site files from your computer to a web host what you will use is FTP, which stands for File Transfer Protocol. A very good free FTP program is called FileZilla, which you can download at http://filezilla.sourceforge.net. Your web host will supply you with a server name, user-name and password which you input into the FTP program to gain access.

You will use the FTP program to “upload” files from your computer to the web host. Most FTP programs work with a simple drag-and-drop interface.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a non-profit corporation headquartered in Marina del Rey, California, United States. It was created on September 18, 1998, and incorporated on September 30, 1998. ICANN oversees a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly on behalf of the U.S. government by other organizations, notably the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).

ICANN is responsible for managing the Internet Protocol address spaces and regional Internet registries. ICANN maintains registries of Internet protocol identifiers. (DNS root zone)

ICANN’s primary principles of operation have been described as helping preserve the operational stability of the Internet; to promote competition; to achieve broad representation of global Internet community; and to develop policies appropriate to its mission through bottom-up, consensus-based processes.