by Nicole Ouellette and Matthew Baya

For most people, it’s easy to get excited about items like business cards or a printer for their small business. It’s less easy to get excited about something intangible, like a website. Buying a domain name and creating a website might be just more items on the to-do list but by the end of this article, we hope you’ll be ready to take the first step towards your business’ web presence by buying your own domain name.

What Are Domain Names

Every computer that is connected to the internet has a unique 12 digit Internet Protocol (IP) address to identify it. Domain names are a human friendly method of being able to communicate and share these addresses. If you have trouble remembering phone numbers; imagine trying to remember Google’s 12 digit number every time you wanted to search!

Why You Should Care About Owning And Using Your Domain Name

This is the hardest part to explain so we’re breaking this down into multiple parts in hopes one strikes a chord with you:

• Permanence – How many times have you gotten an e-mail from a friend or family member saying, ‘I changed my e-mail address, please update your address book.’ Once you have your own domain you’ll NEVER have to do this to anyone again.
• Independence – You own any domain you register. You can change where you host it without anyone else noticing. This gives you the freedom to move your site to whomever offers the best price & services. Think of domain names like modern day phone numbers. You can move your phone number when you switch between providers. This way you don’t have to reprint all your business cards and letterhead every time you find a better deal on phone service.
• Professional– You are a professional, you should look like one online too. Having a unique domain for your business website & e-mail is the internet equivalent of having a nice business card as opposed to scribbling your name & phone number on the back of someone else’s card. By having your own domain you’re showing you take your business seriously, that you take electronic communications seriously and that you’re willing to invest in doing things right.
• Create your online identity – By registering a domain name you are creating and building your online identity. Domain names are used for both web addresses (URLs) and e-mail addresses. You’re going to put this on your business cards, letterhead, packaging etc. Your domain will be the home of all your website content for now on. Every time you e-mail someone and they add you to their address book or bookmark your website your building a base of contacts. Even better, every time your domain is mentioned in an article, blog, or website, you’re building more paths to your website that won’t change. Over time you’ll build a big list of referring websites and e-mail contacts pointing people to your site.

How To Pick Your Own Domain Name

Easy to remember -Your domain should be something short, descriptive, or ideally both.

Doesn’t have to be your business name – Sometimes another word or term works better. A descriptive term might be easier to remember and also help in search results ranking, though this is just one factor out of many.

You can get multiple domains – If you want to protect your unique business name online then you could register all the Top Level Domain variants of it (.com, .net, org, .biz, .info, etc) though this could get expensive . Only buy ones that you’ll be mad if someone else gets. Note: Even if you have a dozen domain names you should really only use one and just have the others point to your ‘real’ domain name, otherwise you’ll create confusion. If you have a business that provides different services/products then it would be fine to use a unique domain for each part.

How To Buy A Domain Name

It wasn’t that long ago when to register a domain you had to spend $70 to get a domain for 2 years. Luckily that’s changed and there are many domain registrars that will register a domain for you for $10 – $15. You can register your domain for as many years as you want and often the price per year decreases the longer you register it.

A few examples of well known registrars are dotster.com, enom.com, and networksolutions.com. You’ll note prices vary. These businesses will try to sell you additional services like hosting so be sure you only buy the domain, unless you really do want to host with them. You may want to pick a hosting company first since they may include a domain with hosting.

If someone else registers your domain for you, it is important to make sure that it is in your name. Sadly there are businesses that will register your domain in their name and if you try to move your domain, they may charge you extra.

Congratulations on taking a first and important step toward creating your internet identity. Hope to see you online!

Nicole Ouellette is the owner of Breaking Even Communications (http://breakingeveninc.com), an internet marketing company. Matthew Baya is the owner of Svaha LLC (http://svaha.com/), a web hosting and design company.