ITI E-Commerce 

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Domain Names

The single most effective means of creating a professional identity on the Internet is by having your own personal Domain Name.   Your Domain Name identifies your Internet business. Your Domain Name will BRAND you within the Internet community. This will be how others share your site and find your business on the Internet. This will be what you use cross-media...business cards, print ads, letterhead, radio, TV. This is not a HOME PAGE address (www.marysplace.com). This is your BUSINESS. Pick a domain that says that. Make it short & easy to remember, easy to type, catchy, sassy, interesting, intriguing...one or all.  Click here for tips

You select a name people can remember and that makes someone want to come and see what you have. You will also receive a matching wildcard email address when you register your domain name which uses your domain name after the @-sign in your email address, which will further expand your marketing visibility.  

Some people ask, 'Should I have a domain name with hyphens?' Search engines won't index the punctuation. In the case of Buyingcars.com as opposed to Buying-cars.com, using the hyphen could be better for search engine ranking, but from a marketing point-of-view, it's terrible. I would suggest never selecting a hyphenated name unless I registered the version without the hyphen, too. 

Think of the Alphabet too. Take a letter higher in the alphabet if you can. You can select more than one domain name. For example, I have 3 Domain Names which I have chosen for different aspects of my business and different marketing campaigns...this also lets me post 3 different websites to the search engines, increasing my chances of driving traffic to my ITI replicating website because every one of those domain names frame-forwards directly to my ITI replication website. 

Having a personal Domain name not only creates a branded identity for your business, but if it's registered with DotAnything.com, you will also be able to submit your site for indexing with the search engines.  You will be identified as an individual with a personal business, whereas, with your replicating sub domain address, you look like "one in a crowd of thousands".  At $19.95/year it's probably the least expensive marketing expense you'll have!

Once you have selected your Domain name, you need to have it forwarded to your ITI replicating website.  More info Here.