Ready to launch your own website? Great. Launching a website can be a great way to reach out to customers and spread the word about your product or services. However, you cannot just go online and purchase a website. If you could, the internet would probably be a lot more fun to browse, albeit a bit less useful.
Instead, you have to build one from the ground up, which includes registering a domain. The same way you cannot just purchase a phone and assign it any phone number, you can’t just go online and pick a website at will. First, you need to perform a Doman Availability search, and then you need to purchase the domain.
Your domain is your website’s home, and it is the base for your website identity. Ideally, you want your domain name to match your business or at least your niche, but it may take some creativity on your part to make that happen. As mentioned, many domains are already owned, so you need to get creative with your search.
A Domain Avilabltiy search allows you to pop potential names into a query box to find out if they are available for purchase or not. You can quickly run dozens of names into the Domain Availability box to see what is available to narrow down your choices. (You can even toss some fun names in for kicks if you need a quick dose of humourous relief)!
Once you find the domain you want, then you can proceed to the next step which is registering your domain and finding a host. While registering your domain, you may want to think about registering names that are similar so that you don’t lose any potential traffic due to simple spelling variations.
For example, Facebook owns both facebook.com and thefacebook.com so that it can capture audience members who still use the old address and those who use the new address. Coca-Cola owns Coca-Cola.com and cocacola.com so that it grabs audience members who spell the name with or without the hyphen. If your business name leaves any room for error, you might consider snagging the domain with the common error and redirect consumers to your main website.
While it may seem intimidating at first, finding a new domain really is as easy as inputting names into a Domain Availability search until you find a free name. With our free Domain Availability search, you can try it out today and see if your perfect domain is out there waiting for you to claim it.