What is a domain name and how to buy one? if you wonder. Think of a domain name as your website’s digital address. It is what helps people find you online and gives your brand a place to call home. Think of it as a phone number, each phone number when dialed, connects to a person or business, domains work the same way. Whether you are setting up a new site or rebranding, picking the right domain is an important first step. We are a Web design company based in New Zealand and UAE and today we’ll share how you can start your domain name registration, without any technical knowledge.
Prepare before you register your domain
1. Choose a name that stands out
Your domain should be easy to remember, simple to spell, and a good representation of your business. Shorter names are better, and avoiding complicated spellings helps people find you without trouble. If it makes sense, try adding a keyword related to your business. For example, a web designer in Christchurch might go with webdesignchristchurch.co.nz to make it clear what they do.
2. Choose the correct domain extension
If you will operate globally, it is recommended to use extensions like: .com or .net. Recently .io domains have also picked up especially for internet based businesses. There are thousands of domain extensions. If you are a local business, ideally choose an extension that reflects the country where you operate such as for businesses in New Zealand .co.nz is very common, and for businesses in Australia .com.au.
Extensions can also be depending on the type of business. For example: Charity organization websites use .org quite commonly. For Ecommerce website design and development projects, we have seen clients use .store and .shop as well.
3. Check Social Media availability
It is a good practice to have brand consistency across all platforms. We work with clients in middle east as a premium web design company in Dubai as well as with our clients in Australia and New Zealand and it is quite commonly seen that businesses prefer to have similar domain names as their social media handle. Check your business or domain name availability on social media channels.
How to register a domain name
We recommend purchasing domain from actual domain sellers instead of web design companies or webpage builders. An example of this would be, if you will do a Shopify web development, it doesn’t mean you need to purchase a domain from Shopify. If you are working with a Web Design company in Sydney, and they sell domains, that doesn’t mean you have to purchase it from them. You can easily purchase a domain directly from registrars at a lower price and have better and granular control.
Here are some of the best domain registrars:
1. Cloudflare
Cloudflare is known for various services such as WAF, security, DNS management and more. Cloudflare also sells domains but at-cost price.
2. Porkbun
Porkbun is another popular domain seller. Porkbun is known for selling domains at a much lower price. Buying domain at low cost doesn’t mean you’re compromising on quality. It is literally like a phone number. What matters is where you host your website more than where domain is purchased from.
3. Name cheap
Namecheap is another popular domain registrar known for competitive pricing
After purchasing your domain
You can connect it to any web hosting, web server or wherever you host or build your website. You can also connect different sub-domains out of a domain to different services. For example if you want to connect crm.yourdomain.com to your CRM software (Checkout best CRM softwares here) you can easily do it from your domain registrar account.
Alternatively, if you are working with a professional web designer, they’ll assist you with DNS setup. If you require web design or development services, Get in touch with us and we’ll be happy to book a free chat.