How to properly advertise a web buisness? (1 Viewer)

[DeathStar1]

OK folks,
A few of you may remember my half assed attempt at trying to design a buisness website for the first time. I finally decided to let a friend go at it for free in exchange for a free couple dozen megs of web space. Hey, when a company isn't making any money, free is the best that can be had ...
Anyway, Link Removed is the result. The only thing we're missing is the sign up form, and a Terms Of Service agreement..
Two Questions.
1)If I cover all the ground rules for our server, can I make up a TOS agreement in terms that people will actually bother to read, or does a laywer specializing in this field have to do this?
And 2)How would one go about advertising it? I'm told web banners on peoples pages cost a pretty penny, so if that's true, that's out... Any help will be appreciated to get us started
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[Aurel Savin]

Neil ...
Looks good... I always like new people trying to make it in the Internet business as I am in it myself but on the design end and business consulting end. Here is a shameless plug for my company site (Link Removed)
Anyway, the TOS issue ... my suggestion is to have something profesionally written for new clients because as a host you are responsible for their site and making sure it is always backed up and e-mail is up 24/7.
As a designer, I use 2 different companies for hosting my clients. One is here in NY that I have been using for the last 5 years ... NY Internet (www.nyi.net) These guys have grown tremendously in the last 5 years starting on your level and now hosting major corporate sites. There should be something on their site you can get tips from.
Another great host that you can get ideas from is Hostway (www.hostway.com) I got introduced to this company a few months ago as I need a dedicated server for a large project I am doing. These guys got their act together as well and should have some type of TOS on the site to skim over and formulate your own. If there is nothing on the site I would call them and have them e-mail you some type of TOS. Just pretend you are a client looking for hosting and need to make sure of their terms.
Advertising ...hmm .. this is tricky as there are soooo many hosting companies out there. Best thing for me has been word of mouth. I really do not need people going to my website as I have nothing there besides a salespitch
On my desing contract I have a clause aksing the permisson of the client to allow me to have a link to my site from theirs ... unfortunatelly this might not work for you.
Best thing is get some clients and make sure you treat them super well and they will bring you more business. Word of mouth is still king ...
Good luck with the business and shoot me an e-mail if you want to chat some more ...
Aurel