What is a domain name?

A Domain name is a common name that everyday people can use to reach a website instead of remembering the Internet Address.
The Internet Address of a website is called the IP address, which is just a unique combination of numbers (you can think of it as a telephone number). When you “register” a domain you are putting the IP address into a public directory (similar to a phonebook) and making it easy for people to lookup your website.

Truthfully, it does not matter which company you use for domain registration, they all do the same thing. So I recommend you choose the most economically priced one. Shologoo offer a free domain name and free hosting. They also offer automated wordpress setup, which is what we will be using with our hosting.

Tips when selecting a Domain Name

• Use Shorter names – Shorter names are easier to remember, the ideal is under 10 characters but this is not a must, the tools listed above can help with this.
• Avoid misspellings – Gimmicky tricks like adding “z” for plural words (i.e. “stealz” or “dealz”) make it harder to remember.
• Use Keywords that describe your business – This will help people and search engines know what your website is about instantly – i.e. “Robert Johnson Photography & Production Services” should try to use rjphotoservices.com (includes the descriptive keywords “photo” and “services”) rather than robertjohnsonproductions.com
• Try to avoid dashes – These also make it longer and harder to remember your domain name. Search engines also think of them as lower quality websites and rank these domains lower in their results.
• .com extensions are better for search engines, followed by .org, and .net.

Next Step: Web Hosting

After you decide on your Domain Name you will need to setup a dedicated place to house your website, this is where Web Hosting comes in. In the next step we go through how to setup Web Hosting for your own website.