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Publish date: February 16, 2023
Step #2
To do list for this page:
Come up with a domain name and book it.
What is a domain name?
A domain name is your website’s home address (like website.com). You need to find a catchy domain name that includes “keyword phrases.” Keyword phrases are the words or phrases that people are searching for. The obvious choice would be to find a name that includes your topic name. The problem is that many of the good domain names are already taken.
Leandomainsearch.com
A great free resource to help you find an available domain name with your keywords is leandomainsearch.com. You just type in your topic name, and it will give you many, many suggestions of that word or phrase together with other words. The fantastic part is that it will only list domain names that it knows are available. For example, if you wanted to create a website of soup recipes, it would give you thousands of combinations of the words “soup recipes” combined with other words.
You don’t necessarily have to use your topic name (like “soup recipes” in this example) in the domain name, but it is a good idea because it’s clear to the user and Google what your website is about. Having keywords in the URL is believed to be a ranking factor on Google.
Should I select a domain name with .com or something else (.net, .site, .info, etc.)?
You should find something with a .com extension. If you select another extension, inevitably people will forget and type in the .com extension which will bring them to a different site or a page that doesn’t exist. People are used to .com, so you should stick to that.
Where do I buy a domain name?
Once you have the perfect domain name, there are many websites where you can book it. I buy my domain names from GoDaddy.com. You can also generally get them directly from your hosting provider (which might actually keep things simpler to have everything in one spot). Your hosting provider is the company that rents you space on their servers which are always connected to the internet. My hosting provider is HostGator.
Domain names are pretty inexpensive. Companies generally offer deals to get you started. Even full price is currently like $20 for a full year.
Buying your domain name
The process is very simple. Type in your domain name. If it’s available, load it in your cart. You will be presented with optional domain protections. I personally don’t use any of them. You will also be offered email packages. Free email addresses are included with HostGator hosting packages so I don’t pay extra for this with GoDaddy if your hosting provider will give it to you for free.
Next you can adjust the number of years that you want to book it for. If you’re not sure you’re going to want to continue with this, you can buy as little as one year. If this is a domain name that you are going to be sticking with long term, you can reserve it for as much as 10 years.
If you are presented with a ridiculously expensive price, like over $1000 for the domain name, it may be because GoDaddy considers it to be a “Premium Domain” (uses common words). If so, try to find another idea for a domain name.
I believe that GoDaddy sets all purchases to autorenew when they expire by default. I would use your payment method as your checking account or PayPal because credit cards can expire. You would hate to lose your domain name because you miss the email notifying you that they couldn’t charge your renewal on an expired credit card. For extra security, you can add a backup payment method inside your GoDaddy settings.
What is a parked domain?
After you reserve your domain name, it will be “parked,” meaning that there’s nothing actually there. While it’s parked, the domain name company (like GoDaddy or HostGator), will put an ad on it so that if someone happens to visit your new site, they will see an ad for their company. Since you are not benefiting in any way from a parked domain, you want to get moving on starting at least a home page for your site.
What’s the next step?
Now that you’ve reserved your domain name, you can sign up for web hosting. Web hosting is reserving a spot for your site on web servers. Learn more about this process in “How to get web hosting.”
