Web-Site Costs and Pricing There are several separate charges associated with setting up and maintaining a website. This outline will give you a general idea of what to expect. Domain Name Registration Your domain name, such as mycompany.com or mysite.net, is unique world-wide, and must be registered through one of the many domain registries. If the name you want has already been registered by someone else, you cannot use it. Once yours is registered, it is protected from use by anyone else unless you let it expire. A Domain Registrar is an agency that handles licensing domain names. Although most of them will also handle email and provide website hosting for their domains, a registar's primary function is to license domain names. Originally, all US domains were registered through Network Solutions. Other registrars have much lower charges. We recommend and use Dotster, a reputable alternative that has been in business for many years. Registries charge $10-35 per year to register each domain name. Although you can register a domain name yourself, it's best to use a professional for this. If you do not know the answers to the technical questions required for registration, you can easily be tricked into ordering additional unnecessary services from your registrar amounting to many $ per month. Secure Server Certificate If your site includes on-line shopping and stores the credit card information, or handles confidential information for any other reason, you may require a secure server. All transactions on a secure server are protected by encryption, and confidential information such as credit card numbers and mailing addresses cannot be intercepted during transmission. Secure Server Certificates are available from a number of companies. Expect to pay $75-100/year. In fact most customers do not require a secure server. If PayPal is processing your transactions, all transactions are handled on PayPal's secure servers, and PayPal takes responsibility for protecting the information. If you are using an online credit card merchant such as Authorize.net, you do not need your own secure server. Your webmaster can help you make this decision. Domain Hosting Once your domain name is registered and the website is ready to go live, it is time to choose a hosting company. The hosting service provides storage for the site and all of its files, and makes the site available to the Internet 24 hours a day. As part of their service, hosting organizations provide multiple email accounts, free email forwarding, website statistics, and so on, sometimes for an additional charge. Although you may choose from a huge variety of hosting services, including national companies (Verizon, AT&T, Earthlink), the domain registries (Network Solutions, Dotster, and others) and local providers (JLC, MV Communications, etc. in New Hampshire), nearly all of my clients use Aidan Internet Solutions. After working with several other hosting services over the years, I find that Aidan provides excellent, competent, reliable service at a very competitive price. I have no financial interest in Aidan Internet Solutions, and vice versa. I recommend Aidan based on the positive experiences my customers have enjoyed with them. There are companies that provide hosting plans for as little as $5-10/month, but many of them are not US companies and/or do not provide 800# technical support. After much frustration waiting on 800# lines for help that was insufficient, I now encourage my clients to host with Aidan. Search Engine Optimization and Registration Many services offer (even guarantee) search engine registration and placements.