Where, What and How to Register a Domain Name

What’s in a name?  Everything.

Let’s say you have a new business and you need a domain name! It should be relevant, short and simple. Why?

Well, many visitors get their first impression about your website and your business based on your domain name  [1]. Also, the domain name is the address of your site and shows your brand. So take the time to choose your name cleverly. My name is www.coldad.com, what’s yours?

In addition, search engines care a great deal about domain names. If a searched keyword is included in your domain name, you will get a higher priority and in turn, a  higher ranking rate.

Top-level domain (TLD) extension

What’s in an extension?  Well, it really depends on your goals. Are you a: “.com, .net or .org”? If you want to focus only on a specific country, use its name like “.ca, .co, .uk, .pl” and so on. But if your target area is general and you want to create a domain for an organization, get “.org” otherwise “.com” is the best choice.

Brainstorm names. Try them out by checking www.who.is to find if it’s available or not. Seek to get a new name that has not been purchased before. And try not to use numbers in your domain. It doesn’t look good [2].

Finally, do not try ba.com, it has been registered for British Airways! All combinations imaginable of those five letters have been filled. Trust me, I’ve tried.

If you are debating between several different domain names, go with the .com.  It’s what most people think of when they are typing in a domain name. It’s true the best names are gone, but you can still find a good .com if you look. Thousands of .coms expire and are released each month so there is always a steady supply of new domains coming back on the market [3].

Where to Register?

First off (and I can’t say this enough), do not purchase your domain name from a BIG BRAND website. I can’t  tell you their “name”, or else they’ll bother me about writing unprofessional posts. But they are the of the “large” “father” variety. If you get my drift. Try using them one time, and you’ll see what I mean.

Based on my friends’ and my experience, the best bet is to purchase your website domain name from Google® and Enom® at this link: https://www.google.com/a/cpanel/standard/new3?hl=en

Note: If you have already purchased your domain name, visit this link anyway.

Why:

• It is only $10 a year with no hidden fees;
• You will have a private domain registration to protect against spam. To have this feature, you will pay $15 to a big brands website;
• It is full Domain Name System (DNS) control and domain management;
• It will automatically setup Google® services for your domain [4]. Google® services are:
  • Free email service over 7GB for 10 users by your domain name like [email protected], this service has all Gmail’s features too,
  • Free document sharing,
  • Free calendar sharing,
  • Use of all web-based services that are integrated into Google® Apps
  • Ability to use these features from your Smartphone!

References

1. http://www.makeawebsiteguide.com/
2. http://www.make-a-web-site.com/
3. http://www.4creatingawebsite.com/domain_name_information.htm
4. https://www.google.com/a/cpanel/standard/new3?hl=en