Today starts a new blog series Web Design 101 – Down to the Basics. During the course of this article, I am going to run you through the process of learning exactly what a Domain Name is, it’s purpose, the steps to finding a great domain name and then finally, how to register your unique Domain Name.

I realize that some of you are more internet and web savvy than others, so some of this might be a bit remedial. However if you follow me through to the end, you might just find a few nuggets of wisdom to add to your web marketing arsenal.

For those of you who are just learning about the process of starting a website, hopefully this will make the process as easy and painless as possible for you to understand.

Let’s jump in and get started.

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These days you can pick up a domain for as little as 7 bucks, a far cry from the first domain that i registered back in 1995 for 50 dollars. With these kinds of prices, it makes sense to grab up domain names that are relevant to your business even if you don’t plan on building a site under that domain, you can certainly just point them to an existing site.

There are a few tips when registering a domain.

1. Reputable Registrars: Register your domain with only reputable firms such as GoDaddy.com, Register.com, NetworkSolutions.com and my personal favorite LuckyRegister.com I recently had an incident with an off brand hosting company that registered a personal domain name for me, i won’t go into all the gory details but needless to say they have hijacked my domain and won’t return my repeated email requests to transfer it to a different registrar.
2. Memorable Names: Try your best to pick a domain that is memorable and easily spelled. If at all possible try to not use hyphens as most people won’t remember to include them when trying to access your website.
3. .com Extensions: Unless you have reasons for picking another domain extension ie: .net, .tv, .org etc… try to always get a domain with a .com extension.
4. Keep it Legal: Do not register names that are legally trademarked by another company, you may find yourself having to surrender domain that you’ve spent time and money promoting or worse end in legal hot water.
5. Previously Registered Domain Names: While sometimes you might end up perfectly good domain that an owner has abandoned or let expire on accident. It’s also possible to end up with a domain that was once owned by spammers and left banned by google and other search engines.