Domain Name Registration: What and How?
A number of small and medium scale businesses rely on the Internet to generate revenues for their company. Whether it’s used to manage their client’s accounts, send and receive communication or simply advertise a new product or an enhanced service, they look into popular technology to do this for them.
This is most probably stating the obvious for large corporations and some medium scale businesses but still, a majority of these establishments do not realize that they’re actually doing it—popular technology dependence. It’s not as bad as others think it is. All that is needed is for these companies to take it a step further.
What Are Domain Names?
Millions of people including you have dealt with it ever since the Internet has become so famous. You’ve used a social networking site to advertise your restaurant’s free pizza delivery services or have used a free email account to let your client know that the shipment of their order would definitely come on time. And, everytime that you type the website on the address bar of your Internet browser, it’s the domain name of that company you’re dealing with. The first part which is the unique name of the website or company is the domain name, and including the part after the domain name, known as the domain extension, is called the top level domain. This usually indicates the type of business you have,such as .com for commercial establishments and .org for organizations or groups.
Generally, what Web browsers need is for the user to give them an IP address, so it can take them to the site that they want to go, but instead of typing in a series of numbers which is the IP address, it’s made simpler by just putting in the domain name of the website.
Who Needs a Domain Name?
Almost all thriving businesses may actually need a website of their own, thus, a unique domain name that’s easy to remember becomes important. A domain name is every company’s identity on the Internet and it is in itself a brand of their own.
When to Register a Domain Name?
If the company is planning to put up its own website, then they probably would want to get and register a domain name – The sooner, the better. At present, there are over a hundred million registered domain names, and this overflow is continuous. There are plans of actually moving to other domain name extensions like .biz and even .museum to accommodate the number of registrants. It is also a given fact, for whatever reason and purpose, that it takes awhile to come up with a domain name that can comply with your brand name exposure campaigns for your business. Additionally, with that figure pertaining to the number of domain names being registered, you’d probably end up not getting the domain name that you actually like. So, what better way it is to start working on a website, if you don’t have one yet. Think about what domain name to register and have it done, right away. This is also especially true for those of you who have their own websites and are planning to change Web hosts.
Where Do You Register Your Domain Name?
You would want to register your domain with a domain registrar licensed and accredited by ICANN, an organization in charge of well, domain names. You may want to take this course instead of having your Web host, if you have one, register it for you. There are a number of cases where Web hosting companies that offer free hosting accounts provide a subdomain of a pre-registered domain to their free Web hosting account users. This would eventually pose problems in acquiring the right to that domain name and may force you to shell out quite a large amount of money.
There are many reputable domain registrars and you will not miss on them while you’re doing your personal Internet browsing to find one. The services that these registrars offer also vary in price and what are actually included in the sort-of package you pay them. Prices range from $5 to $10 for the first year of registering the domain name and an annual fee that could cost you up to $12. As for the packages, some may include a free email account, a start up website and domain maintenance, forwarding and masking. It is also good to note that pricing varies depending on what your domain might include. Country domains like .us for United States may cost more to register than a regular .com domain.
Why Do You Need a Domain Name?
Generally, a business may need its own domain name for the following reasons:
First, it gives the impression that the company is reliable and credible. It is difficult to imagine a customer giving his full trust to a company that could not even have a domain name of its own for its website.
Second, it can serve as a brand-recognition strategy for the company. Therefore, when one speaks of your domain, then it’s easy for others to know that the person is referring to your company that sells this particular item on their website, which is in reality your domain name.
Last, but certainly not the least: It gives the company a chance to acquire sponsorship. If you have a website, it somehow gives the company a certain level of respectability.
How Do You Get a Domain Name?
As discussed earlier, you need a domain registrar to do it for you. However, here is a simple step-by-step procedure on how you can get this done:
- Think of not only one domain name. You don’t want to take a change on a single one that might have already been taken.
- Make sure that you can pay online as registrar’s would almost and always charge you upon application. It does not matter what type of payment as long as the method is online. Usually, online payments are made via credit cards and PayPal.
- You need to get information from your Web host about the primary and secondary name servers of your Web hosting account. What this is technically is not that important. Just ask them about it and make sure to take note of it. If you don’t have a Web host, you can request the registrar to “park” your domain name. This can help a lot while you’re finding a Web hosting company to host your website, setting up your own Web server and website, or while you’re still developing the initial content of your website.