Advantages of Accepting Payments with a Payment Gateway and Merchant Account

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When you are starting a business or expanding to new markets, it is essential to do so with the Internet in mind, even if the business is not web-based. The Web can serve as a very effective advertising medium for your products/services and has the potential to reach more consumers than any other medium. If your business is entirely web-based, its presence, and therefore its name, on the Internet are of the highest importance. These guidelines can help you to choose a business name with an Internet presence in mind.

• On the web you have the potential to reach potential clients all over the world, so you will need to compare business names in a much greater geographic area to avoid the potential for confusion and trademark infringement.
• Once you come up with a few ideas for business names, consider what your domain name could be. The closer it is to the actual name of your business, products, or services, the more likely your customers will find you.
• Although using your actual business name or some variation thereof will attract existing customers or potential customers who have already heard about your business, using a product or service descriptor, like window-washing.com, may more effectively attract new or potential customers.
• Domain names must be registered using an on-line accredited registration service - Granted Peace Services can help you with this.
• Domain names cannot be issued to more than one person or business, so if someone else has already registered your idea, you will have to come up with a new one.
• If possible, consider registering both your business name and a product type designation to attract as many people as possible to the site.
• Consider possible mistakes that potential customers could make when typing in your web address. If mistakes are likely, consider simplifying the name, or perhaps registering multiple names so that even if a common mistake is made, the user will get to your site.
• Although domain names are available with a variety of suffixes – the letters that follow the period after your chosen name – the one that most people are used to is “.com,” so it may be best to use those letters, rather than an alternative like “.net,” to attract as many visitors as possible.
• The “.com” suffix can be used for commercial and personal sites; “.net” is recommended for companies involved in Internet infrastructure; and “.org” is recommended for non-profit companies.
  • For all of those suffixes, only letters, numbers, and hyphens can be part of the domain name, but the name cannot begin or end with a hyphen.
  • Using any of those three suffixes, the name is limited to sixty-three characters not including the suffix, but some web browsers, email programs, and other applications may not support anything over twenty-six characters in length, so it may be best to keep the name short.
• Domain names should follow the same general rules as business names in general.

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• Are easy to understand and navigate.
• Represent your business well.
• Focus on information and action first, and then add splash and sizzle if appropriate.
• Are relatively easy to build and maintain.

Achieving each of these goals requires experience in designing for the web. A website is so much more than what is seen on the screen. To have a properly working site requires that everything behind-the-scenes works well. Hiring a professional web designer addresses more than ‘making the site look good.’

There are different types of providers to consider as you plan and execute your web site. Web development shops or agencies such as Granted Peace Services, LLC offer a complete package. Having all the right people in the same shop makes it easy to coordinate design and address technical issues that might arise.

Shop for the right provider—Talk to several web design firms to see which would be the best to meet your needs, in the end, what it comes down to is that you need a web site that does what you want.

• Length of time in business: Indicates stability and experience.
• Active portfolio: Carefully browse the sites they have built, looking for things like how long does the site take to load? Can you easily find all the important information? Does it look appropriate for the type of business or organization?
• Will clients recommend this provider? If possible, obtain contact information for clients and ask about their experience working with the provider.
• Do they require a signed agreement? Contracts indicate that the professional is willing to put into writing what they will do, what you can expect, and what they expect of you. There has been thought and effort put into creating a document that can be used to measure the work to be done.

• What major sections will the site include? What pages in each one?
• Will you sell products through your web site or not?
• Will the site collect information from visitors?
• Do you want to have an email newsletter to go along with your site?
• How are you going to advertise your site?

Many businesses choose to look internally for someone who handles very basic maintenance. A good provider will have maintenance packages that cover everything from basic to more complex edits available for set fees. Granted Peace Services, LLC build your site as a fully integrated, database driven site, providing training on updating content and maintenance packages to meet your needs.

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Granted Peace Services promotes the use of joomla! CMS - an Open Source Solution to a powerful, easy to use Content Management Solution. Our own site is built using this amazing solution, and we will be more than happy to set up your site and teach you how to use it to it's fullest capabilities.