If you do business online then you already know that securing the right domain name can be a vital component in the success of any online enterprise.

Your domain name helps people to find you on the web, it’s part of your brand, your identity… a fundamental part of your online business.

So, given that the right domain can be such a vital business asset, just how much are people prepared to pay to get the perfect domain name?

Quite a lot, as it turns out.

In 1999 the domain name Business.com took the top spot as the world’s most expensive domain when it attracted a whopping US$7.5 million. The domain reigned supreme until 2006, when sex.com was put on the open market and finally sold for between US$12-14 million (depending on who you talk to).

In late 2009 the record changed hands again when Insure.com was snapped up for a cool US$16 million.

While the market for domains isn’t as hot as it was in the dot.com boom years, it’s still a buoyant and lucrative one. Every year tens of millions of Euro change hands through the resale of internet domains.

What are the ten most expensive domain names in the world?

1. Insure.com, sold for $16 million in 2009.
2. Sex.com, sold for $12-$14 million in 2006.
3. Fund.com, sold for $9.99 million in 2008.
4. Porn.com, sold for $9.5 million in 2007.
5. Business.com, sold for $7.5 million in 1999.
6. Diamond.com, sold for $7.5 million in 2006.
7. Beer.com, sold for $7 million in 2004.
8. Israel.com, sold for $5.88 million in 2004.
9. Casino.com, sold for $5.5 million in 2003.
10. Toys.com, sold for $5.1 million in 2009.

Luckily you don’t have to pay that much to bag yourself a really great domain name. There are still plenty available for under €10 – grab yours from letshost today – it could be the best investment you ever make!

At LetsHost we’re committed to delivering outstanding value to our customers. Our feature-rich LetsHost Complete Irish hosting plan is one of the most competitive hosting solutions in Ireland today, and we always strive to offer the best Irish domain registration prices too.

We’ve slashed the cost of registering your .ie domain to to just €12.50 a year, and guarantee to offer the lowest cost .ie domain registration in Ireland.

Why buy a .ie domain?

At only €12.50 a pop, perhaps the real question is why on earth not buy a .ie domain?

If you’re an Irish business, entrepreneur or blogger, or if your outside Ireland and are planning to target an Irish audience with your online offering, there are very good reasons to get a .ie domain.

Grab yours from LetsHost today at a price that’s guaranteed to be the lowest in Ireland.

Who can buy a .ie domain?

The IEDR, custodians of the .ie ccTLD, impose certain restrictions on who can register .ie domains.

In practice you should have little problem ordering your .ie domain if

• You’re an Irish business and the domain name relates to a your business name, brand name or area of business activity
• You’re an overseas business operating in Ireland and the domain name relates to a your business name, brand name or area of business activity.
• You’re ordering a personal .ie domain related to your own name

For more details read the IEDR’s quick reference guide to their .ie domain registration policy.

Other great value domains from LetsHost

As one of Ireland’s leading domain registrars LetsHost offers great value pricing on a wide range of top level domains (TLDs), including

• .com, .net, .org, .biz and .info domains for only €6.49/year
• .co.uk, .org.uk, .ltd.uk and .me.uk at just €9.99 for 2 years.

When you sign up for your LetsHost Irish web hosting account you either provide us with an existing domain name or register a new domain name.

That becomes the primary domain associated with your account, but did you know that your LetsHost Complete Hosting Plan gives you plenty of storage and bandwidth to host up to 25 additional websites, all from a single hosting account.

Add on Domains and Parked Domains

Once you’ve registered your new domain name(s) there are two ways to add additional domains to your LetsHost Complete hosting account. You’ll find these options in the Domains section of your hosting control panel (accessible via cpanel.yourprimarydomain.com).

1. Parked domains

When you park a domain you’re essentially “pointing” that domain to a domain that already exists on your account (either to your primary domain or an add-on domain… see below).

For example, let’s say your primary domain uses the Irish top level domain, .ie. So, greathosting.ie might be your main domain name, but you also decide to buy greathosting.com to help broaden your reach and traffic (and of course to prevent other companies from registering it).

In that case you want anyone who types in www.greathosting.com to be automatically routed to your primary domain at www.greathosting.ie.

By “parking” the secondary domain on top of your primary domain, any traffic arriving via www.greathosting.com is seamlessly redirected to www.greathosting.ie. Simple!

You can “park” an unlimited number of domain names with a single LetsHost Complete Hosting plan.

2. Add On Domains

Your Letshost hosting package also lets you add up to 25 Add-on domains. These essentially  behave as independent domains, complete with web-space, e-mail addresses, ftp accounts, etc. – all conveniently controlled through your central, web based LetsHost Complete Hosting Plan control panel.

Files associated with your add-on domains sit in a sub-folders under your primary domain’s public_html folder, and you can administer them just as you would the files for your primary domain. To the outside world your add-on domains look and behaves like a completely independent website.

Your LetsHost Complete Hosting plan gives you great flexibility when it comes to hosting multiple domains, and don’t forget, LetsHost is also a leading Irish domain registrar… so you get great hosting, great domain registration and great support all in one place.

You’ll find more details and step-by step instructions on setting up your add-on domain and adding a parked domain in the comprehensive LetsHost support knowledgebase.

Getting the right domain name for your budding online venture can make a huge difference to its success. Here are a few suggestions to bear in mind when researching your perfect domain name:

• Make it catchy, memorable and relevant: choose a catchy, easily identifiable domain name that’s relevant to your business and easy for people to remember.
• Use a country specific top level domain (ccTLD) to appeal to a local audience: if your market is local, it often pays to register the local version of the domain (.co.uk or .ie, for example) instead (or as well as) the more generic .com, .net or .org. If you’re appealing to an international audience, a generic TLD may serve you better. Of the generic TLDs .com is by far the most universally accepted and popular – making it the most valuable one to secure.
• You can buy multiple domain names: there’s nothing to stop you buying more than one domain to prevent others from registering them. You can then redirect or park the secondary domains so that they point to your main website. Another option is registering country specific domains to give yourself an online ‘presence’ in each country you do business in. You can then deploy a regionally tailored version of your website to each of those domains (the preferable option), or redirect them to a localised section on your main website.
• Keywords in a domain name can be beneficial: you may decide to incorporate one of your keyword phrases into your domain name. Opinion varies on the significance of this in terms of its impact on your search engine ranking, but it may help both search engines and users to establish what your site is about right from the start.

Dot IE (.ie) is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Ireland, and having one can benefit your Irish online business in a number of ways… but first, a bit of background.

What is a TLD

A TLD, or Top-Level Domain, is basically the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System that assigns human-readable addresses to specific resources on the internet.

Back in the formative years of computer networking individual computers were recognised by a unique number. Computers still use these complex number patterns to uniquely identify specific resources on the internet (they’re called IP addresses). But while computers have no problem with complex numeric addresses, as the internet grew people needed a much easier and more meaningful way to memorise locations on the network. The result is the Domain Name System that we know and love today.

In practice the TLD is the last portion of a fully qualified domain name like www.letshost.ie (where the TLD is .ie). Top level domains typically come in two “flavours” today — the generic or category level TLDs, which consist of three or more letters and include the popular .com, .net and .org domains; and country specific domains that typically (but with a few notable exceptions) consist of the two-letter ISO country code for that country.

Why choose a .ie domain for your business?

If you’re an Irish business, a business selling into Ireland or targeting a largely Irish audience, having a .ie domain makes sense for a number of reasons:

• Trust: it’s a small word, but one that’s invaluable to your online business. In common with many ccTLDs the IEDR, Ireland’s Domain Registry, requires individuals and business entities to meet certain criteria confirming their eligibility before they are allowed to register a .ie domain. Anyone from anywhere can pick up a generic .com, .net or .org, but there’s a widespread perception among Irish internet users that a .ie domain is somehow more intrinsically trustworthy.
• Instant local identity: any Irish internet user seeing a .ie domain immediately recognises that this is a business operating in Ireland, and knows instantly that the products, services or information outlined on the website are likely to be relevant to their particular needs. That can have a very positive impact on things like the number of people clicking through to your site from search engine results pages (SERPs), and helps to ensure that the traffic you do get is more targeted (i.e. interested in Irish products and services).
• Improved local search visibility: a .ie ccTLD will help search engines to determine that your site is Irish, and is likely to be of interest to internet users looking for Irish content. It is one of the factors that search engines use to deliver more relevant local search results to their customers, lending more weight to .ie pages in Irish search results, which again drives more targeted search engine traffic to your website.

As an approved .ie reseller, LetsHost can manage all of your .ie domain needs. Coupled with one of the most comprehensive, feature-rich and reliable hosting solutions in Ireland today, we offer the perfect package for all your Irish domain registration and hosting needs.

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You’ve got your hosting account, you’ve got your blog or website up and running… now what?

Well, if you want people to visit your site, you’re going to have to let them know it’s there. Whether you’re using your LetsHost account to host your personal blog or as the hub of your online retail empire, if you want to attract the right people to it then you’re going to have to promote it. Here are five basic pointers on how you can start to drive more quality, targeted traffic to your website.

1. Do your homework: before you do any sort of online promotion (and in most cases before you even build your website) it makes good sense to spend some time researching your potential audience. Who are they, how do they use the internet, what are they looking for online, and does your site deliver?
2. Search engines are your new best friend: despite the burgeoning popularity of social media websites, and their undoubted potential for sending online visitors your way, for the vast majority of businesses the best source of qualified web traffic will be major search engines (especially Google). Make it easy for search engines to find and index your site correctly. Google has a great SEO Starter Guide that outlines the basics of search optimisation best practice.
3. Concentrate on quality content: ultimately the success of any website hinges on content that a) ranks highly for relevant search terms in search engine results pages (SERPs), and b) delivers what the visitor is looking for once they arrive on the page. Think carefully about your content, what search terms you want each individual page to rank for, and what your visitors are going to be looking for when they arrive… then make sure it delivers.
4. Spread the word, online and off: how many e-mails do you send out in a typical week… quite a few, probably. Now, how many of those e-mails have a clickable link to your website prominently displayed at the foot of the message. Set up an e-mail signature to make sure a link to your website goes out with every e-mail you send. Likewise, make sure every piece of business stationary, from your letterhead and business card to your off-line marketing collateral, company vehicles and signage, all feature your web address.
5. Engage with your audience: we mentioned social media sites briefly, and they’re certainly a great way to tap in to what your customers are talking about online. They’re also a fantastic way to build your reputation as a helpful and authoritative source of  information in your field of expertise. Engage productively with the relevant online communities… wherever your customers congregate online… and before long people will start to see you as the “go-to” person when it comes to the products or services you provide.

We’ve barely managed to scratch the surface of the wonderful world of online marketing here… but look out for future articles where we’ll be delving into specific digital marketing topics in a bit more detail.

Like many web hosting companies, LetsHost has offered a full-service reseller program from the very beginning. But unlike most web hosting companies, LetsHost takes its reseller program very seriously. We work closely with our resellers to ensure that they are comfortable with their account control panel – or Web Host Manager – and that they are able to properly serve their client base.

We go to great lengths to ensure that the relationship between us and our resellers is entirely transparent to your end-clients. They will only know we are providing the hosting for their site if you tell them. Otherwise, we work only with you and you are free to upsell and mark-up our cost-effective hosting solutions as your business model demands. It is this commitment to a true partnership that has enabled us to grow a steady and satisfied base of resellers who continue to use LetsHost as their primary web hosting solution.

After a reseller’s client is loaded into the WHM, the client is then given access to their hosting account through cPanel, which is generally considered as the best available web hosting interface available today. The functionality within cPanel allows your end clients to easily set up sub-domains, e-mail addresses and change passwords without any support from you or from us.

As far as your clients know, you are providing their hosting, in addition to whatever individual products or services you are already offering them. With up to 25 accounts available, unlimited MySQL databases and e-mail accounts for only €30 per month, or €300 per year, resellers have the flexibility necessary to grow their business and their bottom line. As your reseller needs grow, our service and support will grow with you, ensuring that you are able to continue to provide the type of service that will keep your clients happy in the long term.

E-mail is probably the most essential communications tool used by companies and online businesses around the world. Apart from the convenience of e-mail communications, they are also virtually free and immediate. They offer correspondents the opportunity to respond right away or to prepare a more thoughtful response. E-mails can be informal when necessary, or they can take a more formal tone and importance when appropriate. More so than telephone or fax communications, e-mail has the ability to reach a truly global marketplace. Time differences are no longer an issue as e-mails can be handled and transmitted with much greater ease than voice messages and hard-copy fax documents.

When building an online business especially, e-mail is one of the most powerful marketing tools you’ll have at your disposal. An accurate and clean database should be kept of every contact that you receive via e-mail through a website. Simple forms and contact management systems are available that make collecting and managing e-mails very simple for webmasters and business owners. Building and effectively using a database of e-mail contacts can help grow sales as well as the long-term value of any company or website.

E-mail allows for businesses and marketers to speak to their clients and potential clients on a personal level, through the privacy of their own e-mail terminals. By correctly targeting an audience and avoiding tactics that can be construed as spam, businesses can build credibility and provide valuable information to their target market – all through e-mail. As your list of clients and marketing leads grows, your e-mail database will become that much more powerful and effective to you in building sales and long-term value for your company. In many instances, online companies are valued more for their marketing databases than for their actual revenue stream. Understanding the power of e-mail and leveraging it properly can have an enormous impact on the success of your business or website.

When should I switch to a dedicated server?

That’s a question that has several different answers and can be looked at from a few different perspectives. But in the interest of simplicity, let’s just take a quick look at some of the issues that you’ll be facing if you’re considering when or if you should commit to a dedicated server.

Performance: Is your site performing at a level that guarantees your visitors are seeing all of the necessary information in order for them to take the actions your site intends them to take? Are your site’s pages consistently loading quickly enough for forms to be submitted and orders to be processed? Is the overall user experience seamless and fast enough so as not to risk visitors leaving because of slow loading times?

If any of the above-stated performance questions are becoming an issue, then it is likely time to move to a dedicated server.

Visitors: There is no definitive number of daily visitors that makes it necessary to switch to a dedicated server. But traffic is usually a top concern when it comes to determining whether or not to switch to a dedicated server. The trick is to stay ahead of the curve.

You don’t want to switch to a dedicated server after you’ve begun to experience problems managing your traffic load. Rather, you must anticipate the traffic level at which you’re likely to encounter problems and make the switch to a dedicated server well in advance of that point.

Cost: The advantages to a dedicated server are many, including greater bandwidth, unique IP, site flexibility and hosting support (usually). But there is always a cost to obtain these advantages and you must determine if the additional costs are justified within your current site or business model.

The cost of a dedicated server is actually pretty reasonable in today’s marketplace. At Lets Host, we offer several options for our dedicated server clients. Contact us today for more information.

The IE Domain Registry (IEDR) has awarded the Annual Domain Registry Achievement Award to LetsHost. As one of Ireland’s leading domain registration and web hosting companies, the Award recognises LetsHost as being one of the most significant contributors to the growth and development of dot.ie registrations in the past year.

At a ceremony held a Trinity College, Dublin on Monday 19th May 2008, Directors Graeme Conkie and Daragh MacLoughlin were presented with the award by Eamon Ryan, Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. The award consists of a perpetual trophy and a €5000 prize.

At the ceremony, LetsHost Director Graeme Conkie praised the relaxation in the past year of some .ie rules by the IEDR, including the use of the .ie namespace for personal names.

“The relaxation of .ie rules for personal domains has meant a significant growth. Some restrictions still remain but the regulations in place are key to the reputation of the Irish name as one of the safest domains in the world,” he added.

Daragh MacLoughlin, Director of LetsHost said: “We are delighted. The IEDR annual achievement accolade comes as an extremely important reward to the work we have done in the past few years to promote the .ie name space. We are very happy to work towards building and promoting the .ie brand and thrilled our work is being recognised by the IEDR. We are looking forward to working with the IEDR in years to come”.

LetsHost have adopted new API functions made avaialable by the IEDR to automate the process of .ie domain registrations, and are unique in the market of a dual vetting process that ensures only valid .ie applications are processed to the IEDR. This unique method makes sure that only the highest quality registrations that are more likely to be authorised are sent to the IEDR. If any information is missing form an application, customers are immediately notified and all relevant information can be collected to ensure a smooth and quick domain registration.

A 100% Irish-based company, Letshost.ie is the hosting provider leading the reduction price for .ie domain names and offering the cheapest .ie domains in Ireland (currently only €19.99).

Following the company’s extraordinary growth over the past year, Letshost.ie are also delighted to announce the opening of a second office in Galway City, in the coming weeks, and will be employing 3 new high tech staff members to complement the current support team providing technical support to over 11,000 Irish hosting customers.