Day 5

!NOTE TO END USER: THIS E-MAIL CONTAINS AFFILIATE LINKS!

Subject: [firstname]: Here's some stuff you'll need

Hey [firstname]!

Regardless of what type of online business model you decide to do, there are some basics you'll need to get and I want to talk about them in today's e-mail.

The first thing you're going to need is a domain name.  This is the website address that your customers will enter into their web browsers to get to your website.  Choose your domain name carefully, as it's difficult to change it later.

If you already have an established business, your domain name is obviously going to be your business name so you can tie both the offline and online sides together.  Otherwise, your domain name should say something about your business – what it does or how buying and using the products or services you sell will benefit the customer.  Aim to get a top level domain with an extension like .com.  

A good place to get a domain name is Namecheap [YOUR NAMECHEAP AFFILIATE LINK HERE].  This company is also a good example of using your domain name to show the benefits of what your business does.

Once you've got your domain registered, you need to think about hosting.  Hosting companies have racks of computers permanently connected to the Internet, and this is where the data that makes up your website is stored.  You want to find a company that is reliable, and has a high “uptime” percentage.  I recommend Hostgator [YOUR HOSTGATOR AFFILIATE LINK HERE].   Incidentally, I strongly suggest you get your domain name and hosting from separate providers, as this gives you more flexibility.

Finally, you need a platform to build your website on.  I recommend WordPress. This has grown from clunky blogging software to a fully fledged and flexible multi-purpose website platform.  Best of all it's free, and can be installed in just a couple of clicks from the Hostgator control panel.  You can then customize your site using “themes” and use “plugins” to turn it into the type of site you want – it's that versatile.

Talk soon!

[Your Name]

PS. I go into more detail in my beginners' guide to Internet marketing.  Here's the link: [link to sales page].
