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Every professional business should be keeping up with the demands and needs
of its customers, if it is to survive. One of the essential tools of any business
these days is to have a professional web site. This begins with choosing and
registering a domain name that will clearly identify and brand your business
online for many years to come, so you need to choose wisely.
How to choose a domain name
1. If you want your web site to have an added advantage in the search engines,
think of a domain name that includes keywords visitors would search for in the
main search engines.
2. Make a list of all the possible names that would suit your business (i.e.
isitebuild.com contains resources for building your own web site or getting
one built). Use www.nameboy.com for researching domain names. NameBoy will generate
domain names based on the keywords you enter. If the dotcom name you want is
not available, create a longer name that describes your business or use names
that include hyphens (i.e. ihost-websites.com)
3. If possible, keep your domain name short so it is easy to spell and easy
to remember. Take into account someone may remember the name but forget there
is a hyphen in it – you then miss out on those potential customers.
4. If the dotcom name is not available, try the other new abbreviations such
as .BIZ .US,.INFO, .TV. These are not as popular as .COM, however you may get
closer to the name you want.
How to register a domain name
1. Any company that sells domain names must be registered and accredited with
iCann - The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (http://www.icann.org).
You can get a domain name for under $10 from Godaddy.com. Read carefully what’s
on their site as you go through the registration process. It’s easy to
inadvertently sign up for other services you don’t need.
2. Register your domain name in your own name, not someone else’s. Sometimes
your host may do this for you. This could cause you problems in the future,
should you decide to transfer your domain to another hosting company.
3. Renewal - you have had your site on the Web for a year, sales are pouring
in when suddenly, your site disappears – it won’t show up anymore!
What happened? Well, you forgot to renew your domain name. Hopefully this will
never happen to you!
When you sign up for a new domain name, make sure your domain name registrar
will send a reminder when your domain name is about to expire.
4. When asked about DNS server (domain name system) or Name Server information,
insert your Primary Name Server and Secondary Name Server information –
ask your future Web Hosting service for this information, if you don’t
have it handy.
If you haven’t chosen a Web Host, then park your domain name with your
domain name registrar (this is a temporary location to store your domain until
you are ready to have it hosted).
How to transfer a domain name.
There may be couple of reasons why you would want to transfer:
-You parked your domain name and have now found a Web Host to upload your site
to. -You are not happy with the service or are paying too much for your current
web host and want to switch to another.
For an in-depth discussion on how to transfer a domain name or transfer your
web site to another Web Host, read my article “How to transfer your web
site to another host without losing it” http://www.isitebuild.com/hosttransfer).
A Great Tip for registering several domain names. Since domain names are so
cheap these days (they used to cost $35/year), you can afford to own several
domains and host several web sites. Most small sites use less than 5MB of hosting
space, so you can host several sites for a small price. (i.e. www.isitebuild.com/sitehosting.com)
What are the benefits of doing this? Linking each of these web sites together
and submitting them to the search engines will increase your sites search engine
rankings. It will also broaden the places visitors can access your business.
Generating a continuous traffic flow leads to more sales. You have now implemented
and solved one of your crucial marketing strategies.
About the Author:
Herman Drost is a Certified Web Site Designer, owner and author of iSiteBuild.com
Low Cost Hosting from $30/year http://www.isitebuild.com/sitehosting) Subscribe
to his “Marketing Tips” newsletter for more original articles. mailto:subscribe@isitebuild.com.
Read more of his in-depth articles at: www.isitebuild.com/articles |
