Domain Name Registrations - Do This Before Designing!	2.9/5.0 (112 votes total) Rate: Select 1 - Terrible 2 - Poor 3 - Average 4 - Good 5 - Outstanding
Kabir Bedi September 17, 2009

The major chunk of time, money and resources are spend towards website design and development. And many people compromise on the domain in the process. The domain name is just as important for online success as is a professional web design. Therefore, it is important to spend quality time to secure a good domain name so that you can launch your website on the internet and establish a strong web presence.

People enter an address or URL in the browser to arrive on your website (I am not counting the search engine traffic here). From here begins the process of brand recognition. So, don't underestimate the value of domain names and obtain a good and effective domain name for your website i.e. one that contributes towards building your online reputation.

Contact a professional Domain Registrar

A domain registrar is a company that allows you to use a domain name contained in its database for a fixed amount of price. Domain registrars have an extensive database of domain names that they sell out or rent out in exchange of necessary fees. You can register your domain name and make sure no one else uses it.

Select an appropriate Domain Extension

Domain extensions are acronyms that define the type of domain name. There are various domain extensions used in the cyberspace. .com is the most common and commercial of all because it caters to the general commercial internet audiences. Domain extensions play an important role in how the website is categorized over the internet.

There are also country specific domain names like .in for India, .uk for United Kingdom and so on. Websites that cater to audiences of a particular country location generally use country specific domain extensions because the address becomes instantly recognizable. Here are some common domain name extensions

• .com - Commercial
• .org - Organization
• .gov - Government
• .edu - Education
• .biz - Business

Buying a Domain Name

You need to know about the various companies that sell domain names and their costs in order buy a domain name at a good price. Considering all the other aspects of website design and development process, domain names are the cheapest cost point. However, they are also the most important because it is what makes you different from the rest of the websites.

Go Daddy is a popular domain name registrar and provides domains and hosting packages to both businesses and individual customers.
There are also several free domain providers on the Internet. However, most of these providers give a sub domain of their website to place your website. This doesn't look professional and if you are aiming to establish a business website, this is a strict no-no.

Just like websites are your corporate face on the internet, domain name is your corporate name on the internet. You wouldn't want your customers to feel that you rely on other businesses to support you business. That is why it is important to buy a domain name that includes your company name or the name of your business so that your audiences identify your brand.

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