To start an online business, you need to register a domain name for your website so as to make it simple and more convenient for your clients to communicate with you online. You must pick the correct top-level domain (TLD) for your company before registering for domain names.

What is a TLD, then? A TLD is the last bit of a domain name, including ‘com’, ‘.net’, ‘.org’, ‘.biz’ etc. Generally, there are two types of top-level domains – generic top-level domains (gTLDs) and country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs).

So, how are the two TLD types different from the other? gTLDs are not limited to any region or country, just as the term ‘generic’ implies. Anybody on the internet anywhere in the world can register it. Examples of gTLDs include popular ones like ‘.com’, ‘.net’, ‘.biz’, ‘.edu’ and ‘.org.’

You should be clear on the purpose of your brand/website before settling for a specific gTLD. For example, ‘.com’ is suitable for any company or private organization, ‘.net’ is suitable for network operation, ‘.org’ is suitable for an organization/association, and ‘.edu’ is suitable for any educational institution. gTLDs are not tailored or targeted for any specific country or location.

Why Country Code TLD (ccTLD)?

Country code TLDs, or ccTLDs, are domain extensions unique to a particular region or country. Examples include ‘.co.uk’ (UK), ‘.ca’ (Canada), ‘.co.nz’ (New Zealand), and.com.au (Australia).

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is the regulatory body that sets technical standard to help manage the Internet.

Now let’s take a look at some of the benefits ccTLDs offer.

Local Targeting and SEO Advantage

ccTLDs allow you to target traffic from a specific country. So, let’s presume you want to attract New Zealand and neighbouring countries’ tourists to your restaurant business, you may want to consider using a ‘.co.nz’ as your domain name extension.

This means that you appear in the search results of those residing in New Zealand, rather than in the UK or Canada or some other country.

This also helps to boost your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. With a ccTLD used with your brand name for your website, your domain name will get better SEO points when matched country-specific search results.

This is because when web users type queries into the search bar of Google and other major search engines, it returns various results, including local ones, based on the IP of the searcher.

This means that if anyone in New Zealand is looking for restaurants to eat and relax, the website of your NZ-based restaurant might show higher in the search rankings than if you don’t have a ‘.co.nz’ ccTLD.

Inspire Buyer Confidence

ccTLDs are fantastic for reputation and give more visitors more confidence to visit the website. Because they find the website to be local, tourists may believe it’s easier and faster to do business with the company, particularly if they know the physical address.

Besides, people usually prefer engaging or transacting with local and trusted businesses than foreign ones who offer the same or similar standards.

Show Your Creativity

A cool technique some businesses have used to create a solid identity around their domain name is using what’s called a domain hack. That is where a word or name is created together, using both the domain name and ccTLD.

For example, ‘subscribe.be’ (ccTLD in Belgium), ‘food.ie’ (ccTLD in Ireland) and ‘beach.es’ (ccTLD in Spain). It can also be a word or call to action such as ‘check.in’ (India ccTLD) or help.us (US ccTLD). There’s almost no end to the number of variations you can combine!

Getting your domain names NZ through Discount Domains can give you good NZ ccTLDs, gTLDs, as well as other popular ccTLD options, and you can go on to create your own innovative hack for your domain easily.

But don’t forget that many ccTLDs have limitations on issues such as buying, renewing and transferring the country code domain.

Most people’s mental image of “meat” is a thick, juicy T-bone steak. On Paleo, bacon might be a close second. But while there’s nothing wrong with steak and bacon, focusing too closely on just a few kinds of animals can lead to a very limited menu of poultry, beef, and pork. Even if you eat a variety of organs and different cuts of meat, restricting yourself to land animals like this can reduce the variety and micronutrient content of your diet, not to mention cutting you off from a whole world of delicious recipes! Two-thirds of the Earth is covered with water; fish and other types of seafood diet present a wide array of Paleo meal options. While it’s important to be aware of environmental issues and potential food toxins, the benefits of eating fish are far greater than the risks, making seafood one important part of a balanced diet.

Nutritional Benefits of Fish

Fish isn’t quite as much of a micronutrient superhero as liver, but its nutritional profile is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, the micronutrients found in fish are so important to proper brain development that some scientists speculate that we may even have evolved as coast-dwellers to take advantage of these essential nutrients.

As well as being an excellent source of protein, fish contains high levels of Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA). In particular, seafood provides significant levels of two especially beneficial Omega-3s, a pair of long-chain fatty acids called EPA and DHA. While it’s important not to eat too much PUFA, making an effort to eat some O3s can actually be healthy, because the ratio of Omega-3 to Omega-6 also matters, and the modern diet contains far too much O6 and not nearly enough O3. Eating high-quality seafood can help you improve your health by balancing this ratio: studies have shown that moderate doses of EPA and DHA protect against heart disease. On the other hand, more is not necessarily better: above a “modest consumption,” (about two servings of wild-caught salmon or mussels per week) the risk of a heart attack was not lowered any further. Like safe starches, O3s are best consumed in moderation, rather than avoided entirely or eaten to excess.

Fish and other types of seafood also contain Vitamins A, C, and E, and even some Vitamin D (although to get all your required Vitamin D from food, you’d have to eat quite a lot!). Even better, seafood contains two essential minerals that can be hard to find from other foods. Iodine is one: table salt is fortified with iodine, so most people eating the Standard American diet get plenty of iodine from the iodized salt found in processed foods. On Paleo, though, it’s fairly easy to develop an iodine deficiency, especially if you don’t eat a lot of seafood and aren’t used to adding salt to your food. This is dangerous since iodine is extremely important for healthy thyroid function, brain function, and cell metabolism. Iodine deficiency can cause thyroid problems and mental retardation, especially in babies born to iodine-deficient women. Anything that lived in the sea at some point (fish, shellfish, seaweed, or anything that ate them) will contain significant amounts of iodine.

Another essential nutrient found in seafood is selenium. This makes seafood an ideal dietary choice for people avoiding nuts since the other major dietary source of selenium is Brazil Nuts. Like iodine, selenium supports thyroid function and helps prevent oxidative stress. Although most people get plenty of selenium in their diet, people with malabsorptive disorders (like undiagnosed food intolerances, Crohn’s disease, celiac disease, or IBS ), and people with chronically inflamed guts are more susceptible. Thus, getting enough seafood is especially important if your gut is damaged, because people with gut disorders should generally be avoiding nuts, including Brazil Nuts.

Unsurprisingly, the fattier a fish is, the more nutritious it tends to be: salmon far ranks very lean fish like Swai or Tilapia. It’s also useful to look beyond eating only fish: mollusks (clams, oysters, and mussels) are extremely nutritious, with high levels of B vitamins and iron in addition to the micronutrients above. Shrimp, crab meat, squid, and lobster are also delicious options, and aquatic vegetables like seaweed can be prepared as a salad, or dried for a crispy, salty snack. Eating many different types of seafood will provide you with a rich variety of micronutrients – and help keep your diet constantly interesting and exciting.

Heavy Metals and Toxic Pollutants

Fish is a tasty and very nutritious addition to your diet. But like land animals, fish can also contain various environmental toxins that seep into our seas and oceans from commercial farming operations, manufacturing plants, and other wastes. One of the most common of these toxins is mercury, a heavy metal used in all kinds of industrial applications. Microorganisms in marine environments convert this mercury into methylmercury, which accumulates through the food chain. This means that the higher a fish is on the food chain, the more concentrated the mercury in its body will be: small fish like sardines and anchovies have a very low concentration of mercury, while large, predatory fish like swordfish have more.

Mercury poisoning is the first risk of fish consumption that many people think of, and it’s definitely a serious problem – mercury is a very dangerous neurotoxin (a toxin that damages your brain and nervous system). Exposure to large amounts of mercury can cause loss of brain function in adults and mental retardation in children. Pregnant women, in particular, are often warned to avoid mercury exposure, because of the risk to the fetus.

As serious as mercury poisoning is, all the well-intentioned warnings against eating fish may not actually be warranted. Mercury is certainly toxic, but the high levels of selenium in most fish naturally protects against mercury poisoning by binding to mercury, preventing the body from absorbing it. Thus, there’s no reason to avoid fish because you’re afraid of mercury poisoning. If you’re very concerned, make an effort to eat fish lower on the food chain, and avoid fish that are very high in mercury. The four worst offenders in this regard are Tilefish, King Mackerel, Shark, and Swordfish: Tuna gets a lot of bad press for being loaded with mercury, but this is mostly because tuna is very popular, not because it’s particularly problematic.

Another common concern with fish consumption is the presence of other toxins, like PCBs and dioxins. Like mercury, these chemicals are industrial byproducts that leak into the water supply and contaminate our food from there. Although these chemicals definitely cause for concern, fish isn’t the major source of them in most people’s diets: in the US food supply, 90% of the contamination from PCBs and dioxins comes from other foods, with only 9% from fish. Reducing your fish consumption to lower your overall risk from dioxins and PCBs is like running outside naked in the winter, deciding you’re cold and putting on one sock. It won’t hurt, but it won’t do much to help, either. In fact, if you replace the fish in your diet with foods higher in dioxins, you might even be making the problem worse. If you’re concerned about environmental toxins – and you should be – you’re better off focusing on the meat and vegetables in your diet.

One last toxin that might sneak its way into your dinner is BPA. BPA is an environmental estrogen (a chemical that prevents your hormonal systems from functioning normally) commonly used in the lining of aluminum cans: from there, it can leach into your food. If you buy salmon, tuna, sardines, or other canned fish, make sure to choose a brand packaged without BPA.

Thus, although it’s impossible to completely avoid consuming the toxins that modern industrial facilities spew out into the water, you can avoid BPA entirely by choosing your canned fish carefully, or simply buying fresh fish and avoiding cans altogether. As for mercury, PCBs, and dioxins, studies agree that the benefits of fish consumption are well worth the risks. Comparing the dangers of these toxins to the health benefits of moderate fish intake, scientists found that the potential dangers were insignificant compared to the obvious and well-documented benefits.

Running a business without going digital is next to impossible today. From advertising to actually selling your products online… You need these services in order to survive in the chaotic and competitive market of the modern world. People lead fast-paced lives, so it is no wonder they are using every tool they can in order to save some of their precious time. And business owners are making the best out of it.

Online Stores

Let’s face a simple fact. Online shopping is here to stay. Actually, it is probably here to replace traditional ways of shopping. That might not happen so fast, but evidence suggests that we are heading in that direction. Therefore, if you still don’t own your online store, my advice is to start working on that right away. Learn more.

However, that piece of advice is easier said than done. Not because setting up an online store is that difficult, but because business owners are unaware of the options they have. Still, those who know their options find themselves in a pickle, because they aren’t sure what the best choice would be for their specific company.

Well, this shouldn’t be such a difficult decision. Have you heard of e-commerce platforms? These are software applications that provide online businesses with an option to manage their marketing, their sales, as well as their website. In a few words, you get everything you need, right there in one place.

It is just like your very own brick and mortar store because it offers you all the same options. And yet, there is a significant difference. Or, rather, there is a significant addition. You can get noticed elsewhere outside your city and country. You don’t have to be limited to the small area in which you are located, so you are bound to experience a rise in the number of customers

In fact, when people compare the cost of this to the cost of running a physical store, while also taking profits into account, they often decide to turn completely to online stores. And this is not surprising since they can easily find a simple ecommerce platform that will meet all their needs and requirements and allow business owners to feel all the perks and benefits of going digital. Speaking of that, let me get you familiar with some of those benefits.

Online Presence

It seems that just about everyone is present on the Internet today. People cannot take their eyes off the screens and it is time to start thinking like them. After all, whenever you want to attract customers, the goal is to put yourself in their shoes and figure out how to attract them. It is the number one marketing principle and there is no way you aren’t familiar with it.

Well, if you are aware of this, then you know what to do. If people are constantly staring at the screens of their phones and computers, the best way to attract them is to let them find you on those same screens. Ecommerce platforms provide you with an opportunity to do just that and they are so easy to use that you will find yourself experiencing a growth in the number of customers very quickly.

Customer’s Pool And Brand Awareness

Speaking of the number of customers, this is your perfect way to reach out to people across the whole world. I wouldn’t say no to such a vast audience. True, not every visitor you get will turn into a buyer, but visits are important even if they don’t turn into a profit. So, you should be excited about every single visit you get.

Here’s why people love online shopping: https://medium.com/@bomgamer/7-reasons-why-online-shopping-is-better-than-offline-5fd269ada245

Driving traffic allows more people to see you and start talking about you. When they start talking about you, it is only a matter of time before you become a recognizable brand. Once you establish yourself as a reputable brand, there is no way to go but up. I don’t think I am wrong in assuming that this is the ultimate goal of every business owner. And using an ecommerce platform can help you reach your ultimate goal more quickly and easily.

There are lots of great “rules of thumb” you can apply when saving money for retirement. Even though there are many good strategies for this stage of your life, a popular tip you might want to consider is the $1,000-a-month rule. The rule goes like this: for every $1,000 a month you want to have during retirement, you need to save $240,000. Let’s take a look at how this will work out, assuming the withdrawal rate is 5 percent. So, with $240,000 x 0.05 = $12,000. Dividing this number by 12 gives us $1,000 each month. Having this cash is important because it gives you a bit of wiggle room each month. There are many things you can do with an extra thousand each month, such as:

• Supplementing income from a part-time job
• Adding to your Social Security income
• Complementing any other streams of income you have

Depending on how much you are getting from your part-time job or Social Security, the multiples of $240,000 will differ. The rule itself will not vary, but if you want more than $1,000 a month, you’ll need to save more than $240,000.

How to Save Enough Money

This tip will only work if you’re putting enough into your investment accounts. Whether you have a lot or a little saved, now is the time to start seriously putting money aside. If you are behind, consider making some lifestyle changes so you’ll have more for retirement. One of the biggest obstacles when it comes to saving is debt. Many people find that once they’ve made their monthly mortgage, student loan, or car payments, there isn’t much left for savings. However, if you can get your debt paid off, everything that was going into payments can now go toward your retirement. For example, refinancing your student loans is one way to pay education debt off sooner. Many people qualify for lower interest rates, reducing each monthly payment. For all debt, consider paying as much as your income allows you to each month. Once you have everything paid off, it’s time to ensure that your savings will last through retirement.

Making Your Money Last

You’ll want to be able to withdraw the 5 percent from your accounts without running out of money. One way to do this is by investing your income, which will give a consistent cash flow from the investments. This can come from interest, distributions, and dividends. Using an investing strategy to help your portfolio generate returns will ensure that the $1,000-a-month strategy will work. Stable investments such as bonds help your savings make you money. This strategy also leaves room for you to not earn interest for a period. If your retirement savings are invested in cash, they might not yield anything for a while. In this case, you can still withdraw 5 percent, and the funds will last for 20 years. However, if there are any gains in the market, you can use this time to invest wisely. That way, your funds can last longer than 20 years, and you can leave something for your children.