There are many reasons for this. Firstly if when starting a business online you need from the very beginning to establish a brand name. One of the easiest ways to do this is through your URL address. However one of the problems you confront straight away is you may have come up with a great name, easy to remember, exactly related to what your advertising, however it has already been brought by domain name speculators (people who buy domain names for the sole purpose of selling them at highly inflated prices). Many people give up at this point and get a substandard domain name or pay excessive prices. Fortunately there are places you can buy a domain name which avoids the speculators because in order to buy the domain name you also need to have a hosting account - .ws is one such provider. This stops the speculators dead in their tracks. Every .ws website domain name is owned by a GDI member (now 30,000 off them and growing every day). Some people argue that $10 a month for a domain name is outrageous ($120 a year) for a domain name. However many experts would say the right domain name is worth a great deal more than this (some domain names have changed hands for over $100,000). For the newbie to the net keeping expenses down to a minimum is important so they want more value for their dollars. So it is nice when the domain name cost is included within the hosting fee.

When choosing a web host there are many things to consider. Does it have good uptime? If your website is offline for any period of time this mean only one thing - lost traffic, visitors who experience a problem loading up your web pages for any reason may never come back or delete you from their favorites menu. This is a tragegy firstly because getting traffic to your site in the first place takes work and secondly because repeat visitors are a gold mine and they expect to return to your site with no problems.

Does the web host have fast customer support? It is important to be able to get a problem fixed quickly. With my GDI site I recently had a database error. I sent an email off late at night. By the time I woke up in the morning the problem had been fixed and the site was up and running again. If your in business online you need this type of quick response. Think of an analogy - your website is like a retail shop - when the shop is closed no sales are made - thus your website needs to be up and running for your 24/7 - the internet is a worldwide community open at all hours and there is nothing better than going to sleep and waking up in the morning seeing your downlines growing or sales made - this will not happen if your website is not up 99.9% of the time.

How easy it is to modified your website? If you have an inbuilt editor for your website, thats easy to use, then any modifications can be made immediately by yourself; pictures added, affiliate banners, text changes, spelling and grammar corrected. Once again a Global Domains International website gives to total power to do this.

There are many other things your need from your first website including - business email accounts, email forwarding functions, POP and iMap, URL forwarding ability, hosting, parking ability.

It is nice to have a forum to discuss with other webmasters how to overcome any problems or get advice. GDI has this as well.

It would be perfect to have a website that also gives the owner another business opportunity at the same time (GDI has a great MLM business opportunity). It is also good to have advice on how to advertise and market online (GDI again). It would be helpful to have advertising splash pages or movies to explain the whole thing for you and potential customers (again!).

The simple truth of owning a website is it needs to meet YOUR goals. If the goal is to make money need the website needs to cover the hosting costs. Normally putting up some Google adwords alone will cover this cost, if not generate a nice profits, let alone income from your primary business, its products or shopping basket. If the goal is to have a site that advertises yourself - either to friends and family or functions as a resume, a cost of $10 a month is tiny when compared to your other bills - mobile phone, broadband, etc. Maybe you need a website to advertise a church, a community group, a philosophy, a political viewpoint. Once again a budget of $10 a month it cheap to keep your community group informed and updated with your latest activities. If your special interest group is lacking numbers let me ask one question - do you have a website? Is it updated regularly with your latest events? If not - wake up and get into the modern age, in the information age a website is must for any serious undertaking, business or otherwise.