These days everybody knows that the Internet is the place to be. Even some of the most backward companies are jumping onto the web, and many of them with great success. In fact some businesses are finding that E-Commerce treats them far more generously than the brick and mortar type of commerce ever could. After all, if you're a publisher of information type products that is located in a limited market of, oh..., say 100,000 people, and you suddenly discover that you can now reach "THE WORLD", doesn't that create some new possibilities for you? Yes, you can literally move from a SOHO (Small Office, Home Office) situation to being a dominant player in the niche markets of information technology and distribution. As they say in Mail Order, 'from the kitchen table to the world stage'. "Okay, fine and dandy", you say, "so how do I get started"? Well, the first step, and the subject of this article, is to get your own unique domain name. Yup, your own dot com address. You know.... those things that you see on the side of buses, on TV and radio, and advertised in most magazines. "Yikes, get my own dot com address? Isn't that for the big companies"? Not anymore! The truth is, it's actually very simple and easy for virtually anyone to get their own virtual domain.
Here's what you need to do:
1. Think of several catchy names.
2. Check the names for availability
3. Register the best name that is still available
Step One - The NAME
I suggest that you make a list of at least 20 or 30 names that might be appropriate for your domain. Go crazy and write down what ever comes to mind. Try not to constrict your creativity. After you've made the initial list, read it over again. You'll probably come up with even more selections. Ask family members and friends to review your list. After they see the direction that your ideas are going in, they will be able to come up with some excellent choices too. The point here is to get quantity.
After you have exhausted all your creative juices, it's time to start culling out the ones that you know just won't work. You might wonder why you should have even put them down in the first place. The reason is that even bad names can stimulate the mind to come up with good names. You still need to keep your short list fairly long and unique though, because with over 8 million names already registered, most of the common words are long gone.
Step Two - Check the Name for Availability It's time to take a little web trip to the WHOIS information service site at http://www.whois.net . Here you can enter your name choices and see not only if it is taken, but who has it registered. Another real neat feature is that you can see all the variations of the word that you just searched. For example; if you searched on the word AddMe, you would see that there are 23 domain name variations that have addme in them. You would see the .com, .net, .org, .to, sites plus all the sites that have addme as a part of their name. You can also see who has registered it and what their address is. There are a lot of names taken already. If you expect to register a common name or word, be prepared for some disappointment. You might have to get very creative with the way you present yourself to the world. Placing a number in front of the word you want may work, or using a hyphen or a 'sounds like' variation cansometimes get you the name that you really want. Try to keep it as simple as possible though. Part of your marketing efforts will undoubtedly be off the web so try to get a name that people can not only remember, but also remember the spelling for.
Step Three - Registering Your Own Unique Domain Name. This has got to be the most fun part of it. Once you've narrowed down the choices and checked the availability of them, it is time to make the name yours. This means that nobody else in the world can use that exact name. If you have very big plans for your domain and expect to invest heavily into promotions, it would be wise to register the other common suffix's of it. That way some other marketer can't come along and register the .net or .org variation of your very valuable name and ride on your coat tails. Even worse would be if you only registered the .net or .org address and someone else were to grab the .com address out from under you.
Most everybody automatically assumes that an Internet address ends with .com so that is what they will type into their web browsers. At all costs, try to use the .com address in your domain name. You can actually register your domain name through the above link yourself. Don't pay someone else to do it for you. It is simply a matter of filling out the forms. The cost is $35 per year per name registered. You must pay for the first two years up front, so you're going to spend $70 to get that name that you want. They don't even demand payment right away. You can be billed. Just make sure that you don't neglect the bill or you'll lose that wonderful name that you worked so hard to research. In fact there is a database of lapsed domain names available at the above link that are available to anyone who wants them. Even though most of these unregistered names are there for a reason (nobody wants them), you could find a gem or two that has so far gone unnoticed.
Here is another site that you can go to register your domain name where you can use up to 67 characters in the name. http://webnic.registrars.com/register/index.html This is a very recent development and has huge possibilities. Yes, for most domain names you should keep it as short as possible. But, with the advent of the new phrase oriented search engines, it could be a major advantage to have your Domain name read as the exact phrase that millions of people are entering into the Search Engines.
In conclusion I want to stress one point. Don't wait! DO IT NOW! Every day thousands of names get registered. This is not a renewable resource. Once they're gone... THEY ARE GONE!
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