How to Register a Domain Name

A Name you can Trust

Researching how to register a domain name? First things first. A domain name is the unique name you choose for your website. It's your address online, but it's also a brand and something to be remembered by. If you want to entice visitors to keep coming back, start with choosing the perfect domain name.

How to Choose a Domain Name

* Your domain name should be both memorable and relevant to the content of your website. No point in choosing www.susanapples.com if your name isn't Susan and your site has nothign to do with fruit.

* Your domain name should make it easy for people to find you. If you have an offline business in a specific area, for example a book exchange in Rockwell, it would make sense to register something like www.RockwellBookExchange.com.

* Keep in mind that there's little chance of general, popular names to be available, such as www.marysmith.com or www.betterphotography.com. Be creative and add something distinctive that will make it unique to you, for example www.marysmith-photoschool.com.

* Shorter domain names are easier to remember, but not necessarily better. For example, people may not have any idea whether www.wasp.com is a website about wasps, or whether WASP is a business name or an acronym for something entirely else. Be as descriptive as possible.

* Very long domain names can be confusing and difficult to read. Consider using dashes between individual words. For example, site-building-made-easy.com is a lot easier to read than sitebuildingmadeeasy.com.

* Some domain names can land you in court if it sounds too much like another successful site. An example is a student named Mike Rowe who registered the domain www.mikerowesoft.com but ended up having to hand it over to Microsoft. Companies can be very protective of their trademarks, so make sure that you do your homework before you register your domain name.

Types of Domain Names

Personally I recommend that you register a domain name that ends in .com. It's the most widely used by big brand names and therefore inspires a degree of trust.

Tips for Registering a Domain Name

* Most website hosting providers also act as registrars and, although you are not obliged to buy the domain from your chosen host, it's far more convenient to do so.

* It's always a good idea to include your main keyword or keyword phrase for your site in your domain name. For example, I registered the domain name www.visit-chiang-mai-online.com for a website with the keyword phrase chiang mai.

* Probably the most important thing to remember in how to register a domain name is not to rush into buying a name that isn't what you really want. Sit with it for a while and see if there is another variation that may be even better than your first instinct.

* As a last resort, you can find out who owns the domain name that you're interested in and try to negotiate a purchase.

Anatomy of a Web Address (URL)

* http: This is short for Hypertext Transfer Protocol and indicates a web document.

* www: This is short for World Wide Web. This part of a website address is optional now and isn't part of every URL.

* domain-name: This is your chosen web address, in this instance, visit-chiang-mai-online.

* .com: This is the top-level domain (TLD) of the URL. Other examples are .com.au, .org, or .mobi.


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