Transcript
Welcome to the Get Digital Marketing Results podcast where we give you information and actionable tips to grow your organization.
Bob: Hi, I’m Bob Clark.
Donna: And I’m Donna Botti. We’re with Delos Inc and we make the web work for you. In today’s Tech News Tuesday episode we’re talking about the keys to your web presence.
Bob: That’s right Donna. Not key points, but access. Your web presence is your online front door. Do you own the keys, or do you have to ask someone else how to get in? It’s perfectly fine to have someone help you manage your online presence, but you should be granting them access not the other way around.
Donna: Yes, and too many of you don’t even know what questions to ask or which parts you should own. So today we want to demystify an important part of that for you. Oftentimes clients engage us to do a web audit of their presence and marketing efforts, and too often that audit turns into a hunt for who has the keys. People in the company change, maybe it was an intern that set up that social media account, or a web developer no longer in business who set up the website and now you want to change it.
Bob: Maybe you even want to sell your business. Your online presence adds monetary value to your business so this is important. Don’t let your eyes glaze over at one or two unfamiliar terms, you can understand this and we have a handy checklist you can get in our show notes as well.
Donna: The most important key to your online presence is your domain name. This serves as your identity on the web, and no two businesses can use the same domain name. There is an annual fee for owning this name that’s paid to a domain registrar. Now note that owning the name is not the same as having a website, it is only the use of that name. Sometimes your domain registration may be with your website host, but it doesn’t have to be and it can be moved to another registrar.
Bob: Domain name registration costs vary, but it is inexpensive and shouldn’t be more than $25 per year. Often people get a great deal for the first year – they own this name for $2.99 – but then are surprised at how much they pay the next year. You don’t have to stay with a registrar that’s overcharging you, but you do need to be the one that owns the account and name. You wouldn’t let your lawyer trademark your business name under their name, don’t do the same thing online.
Donna: When you register your name, there is an entry created for your Domain Name Servers or DNS. DNS is like the phone book of the internet. All services and locations on the internet have numerical entries called IP addresses associated with them. What DNS does is it maps the more-friendly name (joespizza.com) to the numerical address where your website or mail server can be found.
Bob: You can host your website and mail at the same place or different places than where you registered your domain. You put the correct entry in the DNS service and everyone can find you no matter where it’s located. You usually manage the DNS entries at the same place you register your domain, and we recommend this as this controls what people see about your name on the web.
Donna: Now sometimes your web developer moves your name server to the web host. If you don’t have access to manage your DNS entries at your domain registrar, you need to then also have access to wherever the name servers are located as this access can change your website and mail locations.
Bob: These two items control your name on the web for websites and mail services, but also for verifying you own this domain for other services.
Donna: You also want access to update your website and ownership of all your social media and ad accounts. The checklist we created for you goes into more detail on those items as well. The bottom line is this: Your web presence is valuable. You can have other people help manage it, but you need to have the keys.
Bob: That’s it for today’s episode. You can find a link to more details on this and get our checklist at DelosInc.com/episode243. And don’t forget to subscribe, so you don’t miss out on our actionable digital marketing tips to grow your organization.
