Domain Name Registration
In order to get a web site online so that the public can view your pages, you must register a domain name. Domain names are cheap and many people buy several domain names in order to help protect their investment. It does cost a little money to get a domain name and a hosting account established but the real investment will be time devoted to creating and managing content. Once you spend a few thousand hours crafting pages, you'll understand why purchasing multiple domain names, or versions of your domain name, makes good sense. An example of multiple versions of a domain name might be, for example, mysite.com and my-site.com (non-hyphenated and hyphenated versions). You do this to avoid cyber squatters from purchasing the hyphenated version of your domain name and putting up an advertised based site to capitalize on your established domain name and hard-earned traffic.
Registering a domain name is not difficult. You start by choosing a Domain Registrar (a company that is approved by ICANN for registering domain names).
Because of my past experiences with various registration services, typically I choose Godaddy for domain registration, and I send all of my clients there also. It is possible to get hosting through Godaddy as well but I only use them for domain registration so that I can keep hosting services separate from domain services.
Always check for a Godaddy discount coupon instead of going directly to the main page of your domain registration service. Coupons and Promotions can save you a few dollars when registering domain names.
If you are a Corporation, LLC, etc., it is probably best to get your company name in one of your domain names. If you are selling a specific product or setting up a store to provide a class of products you should spend some time with keyword research tools before choosing additional domain names. My suggestion is to master the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. In the latter case, you will want to get a product keyword or two into your domain name that can provide high traffic volume but has low competition (sort the search results by Advertiser Competition). You can copy the keywords from the Google Adwords Keyword Tool into the Domain Search by Keyword Tool to check for multiple domains that might be available.
Once you decide on an appropriate domain name, go to your favorite Domain Registration Service and enter the domain name into the search box. The domain name search feature will let you know if the domain name is available or not. If the domain name is already taken, check the "suggested domain names" which will be related to your search box entry and also try the smart search for fine tuning what the "suggested domain names" feature will find.
If you have an idea of what domain you are looking for try the domain search below:
If you have list of keywords related to your business, then try the Domain Search by Keyword Tool.
When you find a domain name, follow the links to check out. Once you get past the all the up selling of products you'll have the option of adding the domain name to an existing account or to create a new account. A Registrar account provides you with a domain name manager where you can login and manage your domain name. Domain management accounts are essential for updating DNS, renewing domain registrations, parking domains and even auctioning domain names.
By default, any domain name you register will have default primary and secondary IP addresses set to the Registrars DNS servers. This is why setting up a hosting account at the same time you register a domain name does make the whole process simpler, but if you choose to separate hosting from domain registration, your hosting provider will provide you with a set of IP addresses for their DNS servers. Then you must login to your domain management account, find the domain name in the domain list and edit the Nameservers to point to your hosting provider's DNS (which will map your domain name to your hosting account). DNS primary and secondary nameservers are a set of IP addresses which look like the following:
Primary DNS Server: NS1.WEST-DATACENTER.NET
Secondary DNS Server: NS2.WEST-DATACENTER.NET
You will want to set only the primary domain name with the IP addresses of your hosting account. Whether that will be the company name domain or the product keyword rich domain name is really a matter of personal choice. Remember to set the auto forwarding of the remaining domain names to point to your primary domain name to reap the benefits of having purchased keyword rich domains.
For more information about the best way to register domains, please visit Orangetree Internet Services, LLC.
Orangetree Internet Service LLC, located in Santa Cruz, CA., provides technical assistance to small and medium sized businesses with Domain Registration Services, including domain portfolio management. Contact us at 830-212-1884 for more information.