How to Register a Domain Name and Kick Start Your Internet Presence

Though finding a domain name that you like can prove difficult, setting up a website is a simple process. Registration usually gives you exclusive use of a domain name for two years. Go to an official Internet registrar online. Enter the name or phrase of the domain name you would like to register. Search for the name. If it is already taken, enter a new name and search again until you find one that is still available.

Sound simple, no? Here are some more tips on domain name registration:

1. Use only well known domain name registration sites. Avoid operations you have never heard of before. If a registrar does not ask for information on the registrant, be very careful and read through all their terms and conditions: some dishonest registrars take their clients' money, set them up as the admin, technical or billing contacts, and put themselves as the registrant. This makes them the owner of all the domain names that they register.

2. Make your domain name as short as possible. Make it easy to remember and spell, and pronounceable. Make it a name that you can brand; it should not be easy to confuse it with another domain name, nor should it conflict with an existing trademark. Your domain name should be directly related to your business name or to keywords from your industry. It should also be descriptive of your sites contents.

3. There are a lot of different extensions available at the moment. We suggest that you get a.com suffix for businesses. It is the first extension that people use when searching for a website. Since it is one of the oldest extensions,.com also demonstrates that your business has been around for a while and that you have a well-established presence on the Web.

4. Register as many versions of your domain name as you can afford. For example you might want to register.com,.net and.org versions of your best domain name idea so that your competitors can not get any of them. You do not have to use all of them; in fact it is usually good to use just one domain. Good domain names are getting harder to find, so registering them now ensures you will have them and not your competitors.

5. When choosing a domain name registrar, some additional features, which may cost more, are worth considering. These include email forwarding, which allows email sent to you@yourdomain.com to be forwarded to another address. You should also consider website forwarding, which allows you to redirect alternate domains to a central website.