Choosing a Domain Name or Web site Address

There are three main areas to consider when building your own website. It's not necessary to spend a great amount on any of these areas to achieve a successful site. Alternatively you can spend a large amount and still end up with an ineffective website. The trick is in careful planning.

Domain Names

With many names already taken, this can prove difficult, but with a little inventiveness you should be able to buy something suitable. You should choose a name that correctly describes your company name or utitizes some of the keywords that a potential visitor may use to find the site.

Have a brain-storming session to get a list of key words for your site and then visit a company like 123-Reg or Fasthosts to check availability of certain name combinations.

The cost of a domain is not expensive and so once you find a name that is available, we would recommend that you buy it to prevent anyone else doing so. As soon as you have you domain name you can begin forwarding email in the format yourname@newdomain.com.

When buying a name, also consider buy some similar alternatives to protect your brand name in the future. Things to consider would be to buy the .co.uk and .com versions or perhaps consider some potential mis-spellings of your new web address.

What Next

Web Space / Hosting

Designing and building your web pages

Finding a name for your site, hosting and then building the pages, will get you onto the internet. The next stage is to make sure that visitors find your site. Read more...