Move your existing Web site to Office Live Small Business

If you already have your own Web site with another hosting provider, moving your site to Microsoft Office Live Small Business gives you all of the resources you need to turn that site into a dynamic and integrated part of your overall business plan.

This article explains what happens when you move a Web site, what the options are for moving your site, and how the tools in Office Live Small Business make it easy to take your site to the next level.

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• Why move your Web site?

• Move your Web site to a new host

• Set up your Office Live Small Business site

• Make the most of your new Office Live Small Business site

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Why move your Web site?

Whether your Web site is an online e-commerce business or a site that promotes your business, the site itself is only part of the equation. You can use your Web site to build and track online customer relationships, develop a database of e-mail newsletter subscribers, and more. But if you are not a large company with a team of Web experts and a big marketing budget, how can you possibly accomplish all of that?

After you move your Web site to Office Live Small Business, you have your own easy-to-use command center for managing all of your online business activities from one central location. Rebuilding your site is easy with the tools available in Office Live Small Business. And because the Web site is designed to integrate with built-in functionality for site management, marketing, and customer relationship management (CRM), much of the work is automatically done for you.

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Move your Web site to a new host

When you move your Web site, it means that you assign a new Web hosting service, such as Office Live Small Business, to store and publish the files that contain your text and images for your Web site.

In addition to your Web hosting service, you also have a domain name registrar for your Web site address (for example, www.fourthcoffee.com). The registrar is the company through which you register any domain names that you own. Your hosting service and domain name registrar can be the same company, but they do not have to be.

When you move your Web site to Office Live Small Business, you move the location where your Web site content is stored and published. Then, you redirect, or "point," your domain name from your current registrar to your new Web site host, Office Live Small Business. Redirecting your domain name and moving your Web site enables you to take advantage of the award-winning Web site management and related tools that Office Live Small Business provides. However, the domain names that you own are not affected because they remain managed by your current registrar.

Redirecting your Web site is easy to do and takes just a few steps. For more information and help getting that done, see Redirect your domain name to Office Live Small Business.

 Note   If you already own a domain name that you redirect to Office Live Small Business, you remain responsible to your existing registrar for managing your domain registration and paying any related fees. However, if you purchase a new domain name for your Web site through Office Live Small Business, Office Live Small Business registers the domain name for you.

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Set up your Office Live Small Business site

Before you redirect, or forward, your Web site address (domain name), you can set up a new Web site for that domain name hosted by Office Live Small Business. When your new Web site is ready and you redirect your domain name, your old site immediately becomes unavailable.

To get the greatest benefit from moving your site, take the opportunity to create a fresh new site using the Web design tools in Office Live Small Business. The Site Designer tool provides a wide range of themes, styles, colors, and layout options that enable you to create a customized site very quickly. And a flexible page editor gives you customization options, including fully formatted, interactive modules that make your site more dynamic — such as Contact Us forms, Event Calendars, Subscribe to Newsletter forms, photo slide shows, and blogs.

The following functionality is available exclusively to sites that are built using the Office Live Small Business design tools:

• All of the interactive modules, including the Contact Us module (which automatically adds customer contact information to Contact Manager) and the Subscribe to Newsletter module (which adds subscriber information to Contact Manager).
• Design tools that make it easy to customize and update your site whenever you need to, including an Image Gallery, Documents Gallery, and Templates Gallery to simplify adding and managing your Web site content.
• Integration between Business Applications and your Web site, including the ability to publish lists from your business applications to your site and to use the Form Designer for creating Web forms and collecting data.

For step-by-step help with everything that you need to create your new site using the tools provided in Office Live Small Business, see Get started creating your Web site.

  Notes  

• If you save elements from your previous Web site to your computer before you redirect the site (such as image, document, and multimedia clip files), you can upload that content to your new site. For help getting that done, see Upload content from a previous Web site. Then use the Site Designer and Page Editor tools to make adjustments to the content that you upload, and to add new content, such as interactive modules, that expand your Web site's capabilities.
• If you or a Web site designer whom you hire uses professional design tools, you can also use third-party Web design programs to update and upload your Web pages to Office Live Small Business. For more information, see Use your own design software to create your Web site. However, remember that to benefit from the many integration benefits discussed earlier in this section, you must use the Web site design tools in Office Live Small Business.

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Make the most of your new Office Live Small Business site

After you move your site, how can you best take advantage of the rich tools that are available to you in Office Live Small Business? You may be amazed at just how easy it is to take your Web site to the next level. To get started, explore the following features:

• Branded e-mail  To learn how to set up and manage multiple e-mail accounts that use your own domain name, see Use e-mail to manage and grow your business.
• Web site reports  To learn about using site reports as a strategic planning tool to help you shape your online business strategy, see Use your Web site to help achieve your business goals.
• Contact Manager  To learn about the robust set of CRM tools that can help you manage your online and offline business relationships, see Focus your sales and marketing efforts using Contact Manager.
• Business applications  To learn about available business applications, such as team workspaces and document collaboration, see Getting started with Business Applications.

Your Web site is the center of your online business. When you set up your new site, think about how you can best take advantage of all the tools in Office Live Small Business to help take your online efforts wherever you want to go.

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