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| Register Your Domain Name  | Welcome to the Build Your Small Business Website Class I hope you find this class valuable. Over the next few days you will receive lessons on all you need to know to get your small business online. You'll start out by getting your website address, then create your pages (by yourself or with a Web designer), publish your website, get your customers to your site, and what you'll need to do once the site is live. The lessons will arrive one per day, but if that's too fast, simply save the messages and read them as you can. Good luck and let's get started building your small business website! Chances are, your small business already has a name. So you'll want to find a domain name that relates to your brand name so that current customers can find you. But this can be challenging. So this is the first thing you should do when building your Small Business website - you need to find a domain name. This lesson explains why domain names are important and how to register one. You will need to spend a little money on your domain name. They generally cost around $10-$30 per year, depending upon where you decide to register. If you decide to register multiple domains, you will need to spend more. This is a legitimate business expense, and is important for marketing your website. Also, customers trust businesses that run on real domains (rather than free sites). Help With This Class This class is sent as an email message with text and links. For best results, you should read the entire email message and then follow the headline links in order in the message. Feel free to browse within the site. When you feel you have enough information from the Web page(s), come back to this email and go to the next link. There are many more articles and information on the website than can be included in this class. Lost Lessons If you didn't receive a lesson you can go to http://webdesign.about.com/c/ec/110lost.htm to get it resent to you. This URL will be included in every email for the class. To stop receiving the class, scroll to the bottom of any lesson email and click on the unsubscribe link. | | | Why Register a Domain Name | Make Your URL Memorable
A URL is the address of your website. If you were looking for a street address for your business, you wouldn't want to set up shop in a bad neighborhood. But on the Web, neighborhoods are not defined by location but by the name in the browser window. It's much easier to find a company that has the Web address: www.companyname.com/ than to find it if it's Web address is www.earthlink.net/~asdf9e/companyname.html Plus, customers don't trust companies that don't match their URL to their company name. With a URL that matches your company name, you'll get more customers.
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| Don't Just Use an IP Address
It used to be that some companies wouldn't bother with a domain name, they would just send their customers to a number - an IP address. If you don't know why 12.34.56.78/ would be harder for a customer to use than www.companyname.com/ then you've got a better head for numbers than most people in the world.
| | How to Choose Your Domain Name | Choose a Domain Name that Matches Your Company Name
The closer you can come to a domain name that matches your company name, the better off you will be. In fact, unless your company is well established with its current name, you might want to consider changing your comapny name if you can't find a domain that matches, but you find a domain that you like.
| Tips for Thinking of a Good Domain Name
First just try your company name with a .com extension. If that is taken, then try adding dashes or hyphens between the words in your company name. You can also try underscores between words. If those options are taken, then look for domains on other extensions. The best extensions for domain names (in order) are: .com, .net, .org, .us, .info, everything else. Customers don't trust domains on sites with strange extensions, and even if they trust them, they don't remmeber them, and so you'll end up giving up customers on your rival's .com domain. Finally, change the company name slightly in order to get the similar domain name. Most domain registrars will give you suggestions based on the domain you initially try for.
| | Let's Buy a Domain! | Which Registrar Should You Use?
There are lots of domain name registrars out there. One of the oldest and most respected is Network Solutions. They are used by many corporations to register domain names. But they are very expensive. Most small businesses prefer GoDaddy as their registrar, because they are cheap and offer lots of specials. The links below show you how to register a domain with both GoDaddy and Network Solutions as well as a list of several other domain registrars if they don't meet your needs.
| How to Buy a Domain Name with GoDaddy
| How to Buy a Domain Name with Network Solutions
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