Registering a domain name and setting up a website may seem very straight forward but doing it right isn’t necessarily that easy. If you are new to registering domains and setting up websites this advice will save you a lot of time and money. In years of working on the web these are some of the things I have learned. Save yourself a lot of frustration by taking your time and doing things right the first time.

Idea: You need to have a strong sense of what this site’s purpose will be. What is the idea or theme behind the site? What function will the site have? Who will the audience be? What type of content or service will you provide? What will people come to your site for? Once you have answered these questions you are well equipped to begin your domain search.

Research: Once you know who your audience will be and what the site will be about it is wise to take that into consideration when choosing a domain. It is important that your domain name describe what your site is about and builds confidence with your audience. You will greatly benefit from having some description of the site’s purpose or keywords in your domain name. Choose a domain with either a.com or.org ending as these extensions are the most popular and most browsers and shoppers recognize and trust them. Try to keep your domain name three words or less so people can easily remember it.

Ideally your site name will be something that you could tell someone in conversation that doesn’t need explanation. I recommend not using numbers, dashes, hyphens, and dots in site names because when you tell someone about the site they don’t know whether to use the symbol or spell it out. The point is that when you tell someone your domain name there should be no question as to the site address or what the site is about. Before you purchase your domain also be sure to consider any alternate meanings and spellings too.

Don’t Get Discouraged: It may take a long time to find a great site name. Keep trying! Use tools to make sure your site name is available and to provide you with new ideas. Instant Domain Search is a great tool for quickly checking if your idea is available. If the name you want for your website is not currently available and you must have that name exactly you can use the Whois directory to find out who currently owns the domain name. You can contact the owner with the Whois look up information and see if they are willing to sell. Sometimes people are willing to sell domain names that they own but depending on the desirability of the name they can get very expensive.

Registering and Hosting: Once you find your prospective domain name you will need to register it and get hosting for it. I have used a lot of different businesses for hosting over the years and I find that Godaddy and JustHost both have great support and offer great deals. I highly recommend JustHost as I have used them for years and the services and support are great.

I will be publishing more articles for people getting into creating web sites soon. Good Luck and best of success in your domain search!

Written by Brad Morris of http://we2point0.com

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