Puchasing a domain name

If you have reached this far, you will understand that to be successful on the Internet you need to join the hundreds of individuals and businesses with websites and will want to purchase a domain name.

What is a web domain?

A web domain is effectively an ip address on the Internet which points people to your website. The address itself is actually quite critical as it is a form of self-branding which adds to the professionalism of your company and helps with your overall marketing. You may not be aware that it can also help you to score points with the search engines if your domain name is relevant to the type of business you operate and the searches that people might make to find you.

Before you purchase your domain name

Before you purchase your domain name, carefully consider the image you want to portray. Your domain name becomes your online branding and it is important that people are able to recognise what you business is from the domain name itself.

Bear in mind before you purchase a domain name that this will also be the basis of your email address.

Tips for domain name registration

• Keep it as simple as possible. It should be easy to say and remember.
• Register plurals and hyphenated versions to avoid any lost business through misunderstanding. If you are likely to give your web address over the radio or telephone, you want to make sure you have covered all possible angles.
• Use Key high ranking key words in the domain name itself. Search engines give high relevance to sites with top key words in the domain name itself and a higher relevance for .com names over any of the other extensions like .net .biz . org
• Consider how your domain name will sound. For example if you use a number in your domain name registration, you will need to consider buying both written and numeric combinations to avoid confusion or lost trade. E.g www.dinnerfortwo.com could also be www.dinner4two.com or www.dinnerfor2.com and so on.....
• Also consider how it will look. I once considered www.kitchensuk.com until someone pointed out that it looked like kitchen suk!
• Consider registering a generic domain name for your business. Something that will stand the test of time and you can take with you if you decide to change track.

Purchase your domain name

When you actually purchase a domain name, you may end up having to purchase a number of different variations.

Always purchase the .com variety but also consider the .biz and .net versions. If you become successful people will try to jump on the bandwagon and if you don’t own these versions you will either lose trade to them or find yourself having to pay an awful lot of money to buy them from some chancer.

When you complete your domain name registration, don’t sign up for all of the additional services. Just purchase the domain name. You can then choose your own hosting company and many of them will allow you unlimited hosting for the same fee.

There are many reputable companies that you can use to purchase your domain name. Just do a google search and you can pick and choose. My personal favourite is www.GoDaddy.com . In addition to domain name registration, they also offer hosting.

Take care to make sure that the company you chosse allows domain forwarding and the creation sub domains so that even if you don’t write your site just yet you can re-direct multiple pages to the same site.

Good luck and feel free to use my contact me form on my Contact Me page to ask any questions.

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