You can find out more about flexMail by clicking here.

If you have met me in person you may have seen my Pocket List magnets.  The first list is the expanded version of the “Pocket List: Commonly Misspelt Words” and, despite the red squiggly line of doom, “misspelt” is in fact a correct spelling (feel free to look it up)!

The second list is Frequently Misplaced Words, which is a list of words that are often used in the wrong context, such as “your” and “you’re”. The lists are not there to test or intimidate you but simply as an extra resource to make your life easier. Don’t be scared to keep them on hand – that’s why I make the magnetic Pocket List series.

Head to the Resources section to see them now. I will be adding more lists soon so don’t forget to bookmark the site and come back later to have a look.

But isn’t the point to make people stop and think? Well, yes and no. Even if your business name doesn’t explicitly tell people what it is you do, you don’t want them to stop and think about it for the wrong reasons.

Your logo can be a combination of a graphic and text or either of these on their own. Most logos that are a standalone graphic belong to companies who have put millions of dollars into marketing their brand, such as Apple, and most companies use either a text based logo or a combination of text and a graphic.

The text in your logo needs to be legible, in a colour that is easy to look at, and free of any distraction that stops it being read easily by your potential customers. In this society of instant gratification you only have a split second to catch people’s attention, so don’t make them work hard to find out about your products and/or services!

In the last Spotlight I talked about the disadvantages of using free email for your business and told you I would also take a look at free websites. Keep reading to look at what it could be costing you to use a website domain like yoursite.freehostexample.com or user.yourISP.com and why there are better alternatives that won’t break the budget.

A huge problem with many free webhosts is that they are supported by advertising. This can often mean annoying pop-ups for your visitors or adverts for the competition. In much the same way that you are advertising for your email provider by using a free email service, you are advertising for your webhost andother companies by using many free webhosting services, with a URL such as user.geocities.com or users.bigpond.com/~username. Free webhosts use advertising to pay their costs and supply their services free of charge to you. You will most likely have absolutely no control over the type of advertising that the service uses to support itself and pay for your site’s hosting. Not only can untargeted advertising appear unprofessional, many types of advertising are disruptive to the user’s experience when browsing your site; we’ve all experienced those annoying pop-up ads and flashing banners!

Free webhosts will often keep control of how much your site will cost them by limiting you to a certain amount of server space (the amount of space you are allowed to have for your website) and bandwith (the amount of data transfer you can have from their server). Imagine building up your online presence to have a visitor arrive at your site and find “This website has exceeded it’s bandwith allocation.” Do you really expect your visitors to come back next month to look at your site?

You might also find that so many people are crowding your webhost’s server that there is more ‘downtime’ than ‘uptime’. Most paid webhosts these days are able to guarantee uptime of at least 98% – this means there is a less than 2% chance that someone will not be able to access your website at any given time. A free webhost simply can’t give you any guarantee and you are taking a gamble on whether people will be able to access your website.

Many paid webhosts will provide features and customer support that free webhosts simply cannot afford to. If you are looking to implement a blogging system such as WordPress you will need a MySQL database, which free webhosts generally won’t provide. You will simply get a basic static site with little or no extras. Don’t think this doesn’t mean customer support is an extra – you get what you pay for, right? For a small monthly fee you are giving yourself the option to email or talk to someone who knows how to help you if you run into the smallest of problems, rather than searching the Internet for your answer. You may even find your free webhost can’t afford to support itself anymore and see it do a disappearing act – along with all your files. While I strongly encourage you to back up your files offline on an external drive, I’m sure you don’t want to see your website suddenly do a Houdini. If you don’t check your website at least a few times a day, how will you know it’s even gone until someone tells you?

Problems can also occur with search engines and URL redirection. Some free webhosting services will allow you to have your own domain name but if you look at what they are offering, you will find it is only a redirected URL. This leaves your URL that you have paid for (http://www.example.com) redirected to your webhost’s server. Your website with the content (http://exampleuser.freewebhostexample.com) receives the traffic and your URL remains without any content. It is not possible for the search engines to index your site without any content so you are paying for a domain that will not produce any worthwhile search engine results, and may even get you banned if the search engine thinks you are trying to somehow fool it.

I believe that webhosting is an important part of building your website and if you truly believe in your business it is something you can’t avoid investing in. There are so many great low-cost providers out there that there is no reason to choose a free service just to save eight or ten dollars a month!

This series will continue in the next Spotlight and I will give you some tips on How to Choose a Webhost.

Do you have any questions that I haven’t answered about using free website services for your business?

DISCLAIMER: This opinion-based article is not aimed at any particular service providers and the providers named are used for example purposes only.

I am always surprised by the number of business emails coming across my desk with a free email domain, such as example@yahoo.com and example@yourISP.com, so let’s start at step one and shed some light on what these free services could really be costing you if you are using them for business.

A free email address is not only seen as unprofessional but it does nothing to enhance your company image or branding – it advertises someone else’s domain name. You could be advertising YOUR business instead!

Most free web-based email services I have come across have a ‘lapse period’, meaning if you don’t sign in for a set period of time your account becomes inactive or, worse still, deleted. Also, if there is a problem with the service and it closes down you will most likely find yourself in the same situation. Free web-based email services will give you all the customer service you pay for. You will find it difficult and time consuming to get a response, and will probably end your experience feeling frustrated.

Most spammers use free web-based email services because it is easier to keep changing email addresses to avoid getting caught. People are becoming wise to this fact and are now starting to filter generic domains such as Yahoo!, Hotmail and Gmail; your emails might not even be getting through to your intended recipient or they might be sitting in the junk folder amongst offers for miracle pills and promises of larger body parts.

With an ISP provided email you don’t have as many issues with customer service if you encounter problems, as you are already paying for the Internet service. ISPs generally provide an FAQ/Help section on their website and/or a phone number you can call for assistance. Your main issue with an ISP email, such as example@aol.com, is your company image being seen as unprofessional. You are still advertising another business every time you give out your email address. You can think of all your business cards and email communications as free advertising for Bigpond, AOL or whichever ISP you are with.

Now imagine turning that around and advertising your own business instead. If you are advertising and find yourself short on space, you can include your email address and it will advertise your website domain as well. There have been countless times I have seen someone’s email address and have typed in the domain name after the ‘@’ to find their website.

Some people will advise you to set up a free email account for signing up to mailing lists or other places you want to remain fairly anonymous. My advice is to set up another email on your webhosting account – it’s also free to do and just as easy to delete. You will be advertising your own business and helping to build your business image/brand. Are you using a free webhosting service too? That’s ok, I’ll talk about that next month!

Do you have any questions that I haven’t answered about using a free email service for your business? Ask me by sending them in.

DISCLAIMER: This opinion-based article is not aimed at any particular service providers and the providers named are used for example purposes only.

This spotlight on green business highlights a recent interview with CEO Michael Dell at the Brainstorm: Green conference, where David Kirkpatrick from Fortune discovered the Dell corporation is doing just that.

While Dell is aiming to be carbon neutral by the end of the year, its headquarters already runs on 100% green energy. Mr Dell states, “Our entire headquarters is now powered with wind energy and energy from methane gas.” He believes that the lower carbon intensity is a result of all the things the company has done to be more efficient.

“Dell already has among the lowest energy consumption per revenue dollar of any company in the Fortune 50, and so for us to be carbon neutral, you know, we’re already pretty close,” he adds.

The company rates its suppliers with a scorecard in order to help them educate them and to help them reduce their energy in delivering supplies. “As part of our supply chain management, we ask all our suppliers to tell us what their carbon emissions are

Dell has plans to release an Eco-PC later in the year that is encased with bamboo and uses recycled plastics for all plastic components, from sources such as milk jugs, laundry detergent bottles and plastic bottles. Scheduled to be released later this year, Mr Dell told the Brainstorm: Green audience in his earlier presentation the Eco-PC is approximately 81% smaller than a standard mini-tower desktop, uses up to 70% less energy and comes in recycled and recyclable packaging.

In addition to working on greener alternatives for desktop computing, Mr Dell says the company has introduced new Energy Smart servers for data centre solutions that use less energy than their predecessors and around 25% less energy than Dell’s closest competitor. He claims, “It’s all the way from the data centre to the desktop, and we’ve already saved our customers 2.3 billion dollars with energy smart products that we’ve introduced.”

Mr Dell believes that ‘virtualisation’, such as video conferencing and e-commerce, is the way of the future. “For every kilowatt of energy that’s used in IT, ten kilowatts are saved in the traditional economy. There’s a lot of opportunity here to make a big impact.”

What steps are you taking in your business to impact the environment in a positive way?

This article originally published: June 2008