Domain Names

Getting a memorable domain name for your website is one of the most important things you can do to help ensure the success for your online business.

Ideally you'll want a domain name that is short, descriptive, easy to remember, easy to spell and ends with dot com (.com).

You'll want a domain name that immediately tells your potential customers what your site is about. For instance, if you saw the domain name "FootDoctors.com" on a billboard, you would instantly know what to expect to find if you went to their website.

You'll want a domain name that can pass the "Radio Test". This means if someone were to hear your domain name mentioned on their car's radio, you would want it to be memorable enough and easy enough to spell that they could look it up by the time they got home. You'll want to avoid using a domain name that contains hyphens in it for your main domain name. If you were to run a radio commercial, how do you think someone listening to your ad that mentioned your website would ever remember it?

For example, if you were a car dealer with the website "Joes-Car-Sales.com your radio ad might sound like: "For the best cars in town go to Joes Car Sales on Main Street or visit their website at Joes hyphen Car hyphen Sales dot com".

You couldn't possibly expect anyone to remember such a domain name and running such an ad would be a waste of money.

Now there are some companies who started with domain names using words totally unrelated to their products or services - and have built them up into enormous companies on the Internet. Companies like Google.com, Yahoo.com, and Amazon.com are worth large sums of money - but it took them millions of dollars to build up their brand name.

Unless you have millions of dollars to experiment with in building up your brand name online, you will probably be better off in choosing a domain name that describes your products and services. You could always use these descriptive domain names to redirect visitors to your company's main website - even if your company's name isn't well known around the world. This would be a great way to attract people who are looking for search terms that you have included as part of your domain name.

Domain Name Registration and Web Hosting Services

There are a number of places online where you can register a domain name. The places that offer these services are called registrars. When you register a domain name you are called the registrant. When you register a domain name you will be given the option (in most cases) of registering it for one or more years (usually up to ten). If you plan on keeping the domain name for a long time it might be worthwhile to choose a longer registration period. You will usually be given a discount for doing so.

You can also set your domain name to auto-renew. If you were to register a domain name for one year and didn't have it set to auto-renew - at the end of that time period the domain name would expire - and would be available for others to register unless you were to renew it again. If you set up your domain name to auto-renew, then your domain name would get renewed automatically - provided you had enough funds in your account to cover the cost.

You also have the option when registering a domain name to add privacy to it. There is a global database of all domain name owners called the WhoIs database.

Anyone who wants to can look up any domain name at all to see who owns it. The WhoIs information includes the name of the registrant, their address, phone number, fax number and email address.

If you were to add privacy to your domain name registration, your personal contact information would not be available to others. They would only see the name and contact information of the privacy company you were using when you registered your domain name. You might want to add privacy if you want to keep your records private and to avoid some of the lowlifes who abuse this information by sending out spam and adding your infomation to mailing lists.

One reason you might not want to add privacy is if you are in the business of reselling domain names, hoping to make a profit. It would probably be in your best interest to keep your WhoIs records open to the public to make it easier for someone to contact you in case they were interested in buying one of your domain names.

Recommended Domain Name Registrars

and Web Hosting Service Providers

Here are some of the best places online that offer domain name web hosting services. When you put your business online you'll be able to show potential customers from all over the world your products and services 24 hours a day.

1&1 - Rated the Number 1 Web Hosting Provider in the World.

GoDaddy.com - Low Cost Web Hosting and Domain Name Services.

Moniker.com - My Favorite Domain Name Registrar - Moniker even provides you with a built-in module to monetize your parked domains. Their most important benefit - Execellent Customer Service. Your domain name is a valuable asset and doing business with an ethical and reliable registrar is extremely important.

NetworkSolutions.com - Reliable Domain Name Registration Services and WebHosting Provider. At the present time, Network Solutions is offering the following promotion:: Free Domain With Annual Hosting Plan