subject: Tips On Choosing Your Own Web Domain [print this page] Are you ready to jump into the wonderful world of the world wide web? If you're game to build your first website, there are a number of tips and tricks that can help make it a smooth process. First of all, you will need to decide on a domain name for your site.
The key to picking a domain name is to make it memory friendly. You want your domain to be easy for people to remember. In an ideal world, your domain name should be the same as your website or at least a close approximation thereof.
You should also try to keep your name as short and to-the-point as possible. A long, complicated domain name may be easier to find and retain but it will also be harder to remember and to type into a web browser's address bar.
Conversely, you should try to pick a name that is as short as possible. This can be difficult as many simple domain names have been reserved by other people or groups already. Also keep in mind that mixing words, numbers and punctuation can also be hard on your users.
This is do or die time. If you've figured out what you're going to call your website, you need to reserve your domain name. There are numerous domain name registrars out there to help you with this step.
You can expect to pay as little as $6.99 and as much as $15 per domain name depending on things like who you are using as a registrar and what Top Level Domain you are registering under. The Top Level Domain, or TLD, is the ".com" or ".net" portion of the domain name, and certain TLDs are less expensive than others.
The selection and registration of a domain name doesn't have to be complicated, but it does have to be done. And once you have it, you will have to remember to maintain it from year to year. None of this is rocket science, however.
Once you have reserved your domain name, you are good to go. You will need to preserve your ownership from year to year, but the hard work is out of the way.
