What is a Domain Name?

A top-level domain name is your exclusive Web address, the unique name that identifies an Internet site, which you purchase from an online domain name registration organization.  A domain name now is a key component of your website’s identity and branding online.

Note: Your site comes with a free subdomain name (i.e. www.yourname.[host.name]) as opposed to a top-level domain name, which is generally seen as more professional.

How Does Having My Own Domain Name Benefits Me?

Having a domain name builds credibility for your business.  It makes your website seem more permanent. The long URL domain names (or sub domain names) that are offered free by many hosting companies are generally viewed as being cheap or of lesser quality.

A well-chosen domain name can even help your website marketing efforts by being simple and memorable.  It can also help communicate your website’s core benefit and position your company against the competition.  Plus, if you ever for any reason need to change your hosting service, your domain name will go with you, whereas your sub domain name does not. 

How Do I Choose a Domain Name for My Website?

If customers or potential customers know your company, your business name is usually considered the number one pick for your domain name.  People will generally try www.yourcompanyname.com first when searching for a commercial site.  If it’s difficult to spell, you may even want to register misspellings of it too.  Choosing a domain name may not be as easy as this, particularly if you have a common name for your business.  You can try adding hyphens (ex. www.your-company-name.com)or abbreviations of your company name, if your first choice is unavailable.

If your company name isn’t well known, you may choose a catchy descriptive phrase related to the subject of your website as its domain name.  For example, if you were looking for potential names for a new puppy and one of your search engine results is a site with www.nameadog.com.  What are the odds that you would click through to that site?  Pretty good. 

When conducting business in an international environment, .com domain names are usually considered the best.  If you’re only conducting business in one country, you can use country-specific endings like .ca. in Canada.  There are other endings like .org, .net., .biz, etc., however when a person knows of your company they’ll usually check .com.

Either way, keep your domain name simple, easy to remember, and related to the subject of your site. 

How Do I Register a Domain Name?

1.       .Choose a few domain names that reflect your company and its products.
2.    . Using a domain name availability search tool, check to see if your chosen domain name is available.  Keep trying different domain names until you find a suitable one that is available.
3.      .Register your domain name  through one of the many online domain name registration companies.You can search for them by entering “domain name registration” in Google.