How To Buy A Domain Name? 8 Things To Know When You Decide To Buy A Domain Name

Building a website is essential to establish your business! It helps individuals to come in touch with you and learn more about your business. Therefore, it is significant that the domain name of your website reflects your brand reasonably and effectively. Well, for multiple new business owners, registering a domain name for the website might seem like a daunting task. 

Don't worry, today we are going to dig deep to understand how it works, how to buy a domain name for your website, where to buy a domain name, and what its importance of it is. In this article, we will answer all the queries about a domain name and try to solve your problems. The primary goal is to help you in choosing the correct domain name for your website & also make you understand the process of buying a domain name.  

1) What exactly is a domain name?

In simple terms, a domain name is the name of the website of your business that is also known as the web address. It is what redirects us to the home page of the website. For example, suppose the website is your house, so the domain name is the address. Also, domain names were innovated to solve the problem of remembering long IP addresses loaded with numbers. Just imagine, that you have to remember and type down the IP address to visit a website; how difficult it is to do regularly. But now, you don't have to type the IP address; you just have to enter the domain name of the website that you want to visit in the address bar of your browser. 

2) What do you mean by domain extension? 

A domain extension is what comes after the domain name of the business. For example - .com, .co.uk, .net, .org. Also, .com is the most suitable domain extension that one can get. Always try to get a domain name that helps you in keeping your business consistent. 

You might also look for other options, as listed above if .com is not available. After .com, .net is the widely appreciated domain extension, and if your business is a non-profit organization, then you can go with .org. These three are the leading extensions of all.

3) Can you use numbers & hyphens? 

Domain names should be simple so that it will be easy for the customers or viewers to remember and be able to type them fast to visit the website. Avoid using numbers & hyphens in your domain name as it makes it more complex & difficult to remember.

4) What Is Domain Parking?

After buying the domain extension of your choice, you are supposed to configure the domain name with your web hosting service. This particular step will help your website to launch and permits you to use the email address of your company, which makes everything professional. 

For example, your business name is Holistic Life, and your main domain is holisticlife.com. But if you have bought holisticlife.co.uk and holisticlife.net, then you will get the option of domain parking these sites, which means binding them all with your website's IP address. What will happen is that when a person enters holisticlife.co.uk instead of typing holistic.com, he/she won't be redirected to an error page rather the person will be re-channeled to the main website, which is holisticlife.com.

Domain Parking helps customers find your business/website effortlessly & also prevents others from acquiring your domain name. 

5) Does your registered business name & your domain name have to be the same? 

Primarily, No. Your domain name and your registered business name don't have to be the same, but it is important to consider that your domain name should be similar to your business name. If your domain name is holistic life, you certainly will not choose domain names like mylifeideas.com or mydailylife.com. It becomes sensible to keep your domain name similar so that the customers can relate to it, and also it helps in the process of branding your business. 

6) Does the name of your domain name get affected by Search Engine Optimization?

The domain name of your choice does have effects on SEO, but you don't have to worry much about that, as it doesn't matter that much. Focus on your website-building process, and there are a lot of techniques to improve the SEO of your website. 

Further Reading, SEO vs SEM

7) Length of your domain name?

"The shorter, the better!" Even past studies have shown that an ideal domain name consists of eight characters and not more than that. Don't ever make your domain name long and difficult to remember, such as holisticlifetohaveahealthylifestyleahead.com. No, such domain names don't work for anyone, and they cause a lot of complications in the long run. 

8) How to buy a domain name for your business? 

To buy a domain name, you can look for many domain name registrars, such as GoDaddy, Namecheap, Network Solutions, etc. On average, a domain name costs around $14.99 per year. 

According to the Forbes Advisor, these are the top 10 domain registrars : 

• Namecheap

• Domain.com

• Google Domains

• Dreamhost

• Hover

• GoDaddy

• Bluehost

• Hostgator

• Network Solutions

• Buy Domains

The steps to buying a domain name are as follows : 

a) Firstly, choose a suitable domain registrar who is credible & trustworthy both at the same time. You should also pay attention to the charges it has per year and that the domain registrar is of a high level. 

b) Finding a suitable domain name is quite a task as it is one the essential parts of your business that contribute towards its success. The perfect blend of your domain name & the domain extension is essential so that it results in more clicks by the customers through search engine pages. Also, when it comes to site ranking for search results, Google does consider the domain name of the business. 

Also Read, Tips To Improve The CTR

c) The next step is to check whether the domain that you want is available or not. Domain providers themselves have the features or tools known as domain finders. Specifically, now you have to enter the domain that you have chosen and click on the option "search." 

After that, the tool itself gives you the result about the availability of the domain; if the domain is available, it will tell you that it is available, and if it is not, then it will give you a notification of the domain being registered before or taken. 

d) Now that you have checked for the availability of the domain, it is still not precisely clear how to buy a domain name! So, in the next step, you will see the option of " add to cart"; this one will help you in buying the domain of your choice. Select the next button now the payment page will appear. You will see all the charges for the domain you have selected. Continue by clicking on agreeing to all the terms & conditions and then make the payment.

e) Lastly, you have to verify the ownership of your newly purchased domain. For that, you will receive a verification mail in which a link will be provided. You can click on the link to verify your ownership of the domain within 15 days. After 15 days, if you haven't verified, then the domain will be deactivated by the domain provider. 

Here are some tips & tricks for choosing an ideal domain name:

Keeping in mind the above-listed points, let's read out some quick tips before you buy a domain name for your business.

• When you buy a domain name, insert the keywords that are related to your own business. 

• Your domain name should be easy to spell out.

• Focusing on your target audience while you buy a domain name is the most important factor of all. 

• The domain name should be eye-grabbing and attractive so that it can stay in someone's mind for a long time. 

• You can also get help from domain name generators which can make your task easy and provide you with a lot more options. 

Further Reading, How To Do Perfect Keyword Research 

In Conclusion

Now that you have decided to buy a domain name, don't delay in the process of buying it anymore. 

Just one last thing to consider while you buy a domain name for your business is that your domain name should be real and connected to your business. 

We hope that this article helped you in learning in & out about domain names & most importantly, how to buy domain names.