Domain names are the primary way through which your customers can access your website on the internet. They are used to create business email addresses that your customers can reach you on. Domain names must be registered with an authorized Doman Name Registrar annually. ProStartKit can help you purchase a domain of your choice, for example, www.yourbusinessname.com and have it configured to take your customers to your website. Your customers will be able to access your website once it is configured correctly. You will also be able to send and receive emails using, for example, yourname@yourbusinessname.com.

A domain is technically not owned by anyone but once it is registered to you, it is yours for as long as you continue to renew it annually before it expires. As long as you continue to pay the monthly fees for your chosen web kit, ProStartKit will take care of this for you along with ensuring it is kept secure, your registration information is private, and it is configured correctly. This allows you to have more time to focus on the core of your business and worry less about domain management. Depending on your chosen payment method, you can manually make monthly payments for your chosen web kit or you can set up your payments to auto-renew, to ensure your domain remains registered to you. Auto renewal is currently only available for payment by Debit / Credit card.

You can use a free service like Gmail to register your company email, e.g. yourbusinessname@gmail.com or personal email e.g. yourname@gmail.com to send and receive emails. However, there are a number of reasons why this is not good for your business. Here are a few important ones:

Your customers/vendors may not take your business seriously if you use a free email service for your business. In contrast, a professional business email that is tied to a domain name that your business owns, e.g. yourbusinessname.com gives your customers/vendors more confidence that your business is a genuine one. With a registered domain name, you can create professional business email such as sales@yourbusinessname.com or yourname@yourbusinessname.com. In fact, some organizations make it a policy not to deal with businesses that use emails tied to free services like Gmail. This is because it is impossible to tell if an email received from a free service is genuine since anyone can create such an email. There is no way of telling if the person using the email is in fact (still) a genuine employee of your business. In short, using a free email service for your business is more susceptible to fraud and scams whereas using a professional business email address limits such occurrences.

Free email services do not scale as your business grows. If your company grows and each person must have their own personal email, it becomes problematic to use free services, especially when it is important to have privacy and/or audit trails of employee/customer communication.

Email addresses with your domain name promote your business for you if you have a website. Every time you send an email, e.g. yourname@yourbusiness.com you are advertising your website’s web address to potential customers, providing an easy way for them to know your business’ website address and likely visit your website.

ProStartKit not only provides professional email addresses but also takes care of managing them for you. You can add, remove and modify email accounts up to what your chosen web kit allows. The professional business email provided comes with world-class security and industry-leading spam and virus filters. Depending on your chosen payment method, you can manually make monthly payments for your chosen web kit or you can set up your payments to auto-renew, to ensure your business email is always on. Auto renewal is currently only available for payment by Debit / Credit card.

Answering this question requires a bit of self-evaluation of your business. In truth, in some cases a Facebook page or an Instagram page or any appropriate social media channel may be a useful medium to get your business, its products and services to your potential customers. However, what matters most is understanding the target audience of your business and where you could find them. In the simplest of forms they exist in two; online users on social media and online users who are not on social media. You would agree there is no point in having a website if all or the majority of your potential customers online are found on social media. Also, it is a big miss if all or the majority of your potential customers online are not found on social media and all you have is a social media page. If you are able to determine where you will find your potential customers online then you have your answer. However, the reality is most entrepreneurs just starting a business sometimes are uncertain of where their target audience reside online. In some cases you may have businesses in which our potential customers online are found in both groups. In such cases, your business cannot rely merely on a social media page; it would definitely need a website as well.

Food for thought: when a user is looking for a business, product or service the first place they go to is Google or in other words the web, not social media. This makes it important for your business to have a presence beyond social media. Further, having a website for your business can help it appear more legitimate to potential customers who search for it online allowing you to compete with bigger businesses.

Best of all, ProStartKit has made it much easier and more affordable for small businesses to have a complete online presence with web kits that come complete with a domain, business email, a professional website and website monitoring & security updates. The best part is it is all done for you, making it hassle-free and allowing you to focus on your business and growing it to greater heights.

ProStartKit is brought to you by ProWeb, a team of web design & software engineering experts with over 15 years experience in building high quality enterprise websites and applications. Our services have constantly been sought out by startups and small businesses alike but have been out of reach for most pricewise. We listened to your feedback and used our combined range of experience, knowledge and expertise to come up with ProStartKit; a product designed specifically for startups, small business, freelancers, SMEs and businesses generally new to establishing an online presence.

ProStartKit has carefully curated web kits that have all you need to get an online presence at very competitive and affordable prices – without a compromise on quality. ProStartKit goes further than most market offerings by giving you the first, fully-managed complete online presence solution for small businesses. You rest easy knowing a modern, professionally designed website along with domain, email, and maintenance are taken care of for you. We know you are tight for time and relieve you of managing or maintaining your site so that you have a hassle-free online presence experience for your business. We take care of everything, you only need to update your website content. To help you do this, we provide how-to videos and resources.

Web hosting is a web service provided by web companies that sell/lease space on a web server where you can store your website’s files, which enables your customers to access your business’ website on the internet. You would need to own a domain and have it configured to point to where your website files are.

The managed web hosting ProStartKit comes with works the same way – it is a form of web hosting specifically optimized for WordPress websites. The difference is, we will handle the optimization and maintenance of your server space, ensuring that your website runs efficiently and securely.

If you’re serious about boosting the performance and security of your website, we highly recommend signing up for ProStartKit web kits. Run your business with the peace of mind that your website is completely secure and backed by our team of experts. Your site will always be up-to-date, while speed and performance issues are kept in check. Signing up for our web kits means you get time back to reinvest into your business’ growth.

Once you have ordered and paid for your chosen web kit,

1. One of our team members will schedule an inception meeting with you (via phone, online or in-person) where you will discuss your requirements for your online presence.
2. You will provide your preferred domain name as well as names of your chosen email addresses. You will also provide three samples of similar websites that give an idea of what you would like for your new website.
3. Your assigned web designer will then provide you with three templates that match your business industry and that resemble your sample websites. You will pick your favourite – with which your site will be designed.
4. You will be asked to provide content about your business, to add to the website, this includes: text, images, and your company logo. You simply provide the content and we handle everything else. If you don’t have any images –  no problem. We can insert professional stock images that will fit your site perfectly.
5. Once the site is complete, you will be given an opportunity to review it. The feedback you provide will result in a revised site, which you will be given another opportunity to review and see if your requested changes were addressed.
6. Once completed, the site will be made live and your customers can access it. We will also provide you access to your business email accounts so that you can send and receive emails from your official company domain.
7. It doesn’t end here – we will continue to make sure your site is monitored to ensure it has no issues. We will also apply security updates to your website so that it is not vulnerable to attacks.