Best Place For A Website Domain

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Take time to welcome my guest blogger:

Best Place For A Website Domain

What is the best place to register a domain? Where is the best place to host it?

Domain Registration

The first step in creating a website is to register a domain name. Choosing a name could be an article in itself: for now we’ll just give a couple of hints.

  1. If it’s not already taken, register your own name. I have alanjenkin.com, and have used it in several different ways. Specifically, I can use subdomain redirects to point to other links. For example, suppose I have an affiliate link that looks like www.myaffiliatelink.com?myid=abcdxyz123456789 or something equally ugly. I can create a subdomain as mylink.alanjenkin.com and redirect (or forward) it to that ugly link. If your name is John Smith, though, you will likely find the domain is already taken. Then you can check variations, like thejohnsmith.com or therealjohnsmith.com or johnsmithhimself.com – use your imagination!
  2. Your name is great for a personal site, but for a business site you might choose keywords that describe the site. If you’re doing this, stay away from hyphens, numbers and special characters. I have a site gr8netbiz.com which may look cute but doesn’t get any traffic! Using 2 for “to” or 4 for “for” is not really a good idea either, because it destroys the keyword value of the link.

So, having picked a name, where do you go to register it? Registering it is a legal necessity created to avoid having multiple domains with the same name.

There are really three options when registering a domain:

  1. Go to the lowest cost registrar – the one that has a “special” on this week. Domain registration is not expensive, but if every penny counts you might choose this route. GoDaddy, NetworkSolutions, register.com, namecheap,com are among the many registrars you can choose.
  2. Register at the same place you used last time. If you have multiple domains, it’s a pain if they’re all at different registrars, as I found out to my cost! You will find that every time a domain comes due for renewal (every year, for example) you have to remember how to navigate around the site for that particular registrar. I ended up with sites registered at three or four different places, some for as long as five years. When I had to renew it was always a nightmare – I now have only two registrars and plan to reduce that to one soon. You can move the registration any time, but it often takes a couple of days before the site is available again.
  3. Register with the people you host with. Each web host has a preferred registrant, and the benefit of using that one is that when you have problems (and you will) you can generally get single-source help. This is the solution I prefer.

Domain Hosting

Unless you have your own server, you will need to store your website on somebody else’s server. This storing is called “hosting” – it’s the internet equivalent of an address. (Think of your domain as your name and your host as your address, and you’ve got the idea.)

Web hosts will cost you money, too, so once again you have three possibilities:

  1. Go to the lowest cost hosting service. Domain hosting is not really expensive, but it does add up over time. If you believe that you are likely to need more than one domain, bear in mind that today’s bargain may be tomorrow’s extravagance. GoDaddy, Hostgator, Bluehost are examples of low cost web hosting.
  2. Register at the same place you used last time. If you have multiple domains, it’s a real pain if they’re all at different hosts, because every time you need to access the back office you have to remember how to navigate around that host’s site. Also, the better hosts allow you to host several sites with them at a much better cost than you will pay for multiple hosts. You can change the host any time, but that, too can take a couple of days: I now have all my sites at a single host.
  3. Before you choose a hosting company, take a look at what is included. As a minimum you will need a Cpanel (control panel) to access your files. Many companies will only give you a single Cpanel, which means all your domains are essentially stored in one folder. It is better to have a separate Cpanel for each domain, each with its own username and password. That way, if one domain is compromised by an attack the other domains are clean, meaning you only need to clean up the bad domain rather than every domain you own.

Where is the best place for a domain?

Imagine that you can get everything you need for your domain: registration, hosting, and CRM (customer relations management) all in one place at a good price, because that’s really what you need. Now imagine that you can also get quality support (for when you make a mistake) and first-class training at no extra cost. You just imagined the hosting company I use!

After using various hosting and registration companies over the years, I finally settled on one, and saved myself hundreds of dollars in the process. (In the interests of full disclosure, I should mention that this company also has an affiliate program, which I’m a member of, so it’s possible that I might receive some compensation from them if you join through my link.) And I can also tell you that I would not make this recommendation unless I was personally convinced that it’s the best choice for me (and maybe for you).

Having said that, I recommend using Host Then Profit for your hosting. This is a lower cost version of the service I use and shares their training and registration services. If you need a full CMR, then you can add Pure Leverage (from the same company). If you need extended hosting services you can upgrade your hosting service seamlessly to GVO (the hosting service I use).

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it, and look forward to having you join me in the GVO family of companies.

Alan Jenkin

Alan and Billie Jenkin

P.S. If you enjoyed this post, please “Like” my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/alanjenkinbiz ! Thank you 🙂




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