Why a Good Domain Name is Important?

A domain name is your unique identifier among billions of other websites on the web. That’s why having a memorable and easy-to-type name is essential for having an online presence.

Your domain name serves as an extension of your personal or business name. In that sense it:

Improves recognition and awareness.
Adds extra credibility to your venture.
Eventually boosts visitors’ recall.

Also, choosing a good domain name is important for SEO. Several years ago exact match domains (EMDs) were all the rage, but today most people choose brandable domain names.

Memorable domain names get typed to Google more frequently. Algorithms keep track of that and assign more authority to your website. As the branded search volume grows, your domain name earns extra authority points, so that it gets easier to rank for related keywords.

With that being said, let’s move on to the how-to part.

Good to know: The first step before registering a domain name should be choosing a website platform that you’re going to build your site on. Here is our step-by-step tutorial on how to make a website with WordPress.

How to Register a Domain Name: 4 Options

Using Domain.com
Using GoDaddy.com
Using Namecheap.com
Using Bluehost web hosting (offers free domain for 1 year)

To get a domain name, you’ll need to ‘call dibs’ with ICANN. ICANN is a global non-profit authority that maintains records on which domain and IP address belongs to whom and manages access to them.

But ICANN doesn’t provide registration services, it only maintains records. That’s where domain name registrars come into play.

The primary role of a register is to:

Coordinate claims on different domain names.
Match specific domain names with Domain Name System (DNS) nameservers.
Ensure that there are no duplicate domain names.

Technically speaking, you are not buying a domain name from a registrar company, but reserve its usage for a specified time. You can pay to reserve a domain for 1-10 years at a time, depending on the registrar. After your initial subscription expires, you’ll need to renew it and pay a fee again. You can re-purchase your domain name over and over again.

When registering a domain name, you sign a long-term lease of your domain (without the ability to buy it out for good). You can read more about the domain costs here.

In practice, all of the above is much simpler than you think as we will show below.

1. How to Get a Domain Name from Domain.com

Domain.com is a reputable domain registrar, launched in 1998. Over 1.2 million websites are registered with them.

Domain.com features the most popular top level domains (TLDs) such as .com, .net, .org, .co, along with over 25 county-specific domain extensions (.fr, .au, .co.uk, and more).

They are mostly selling affordable domain names with most names priced in the $9.99-$12.99/year range. If you are lucky, you can also steal a deal and buy your domain name for as low as $2.99/year.

For that price you get:

1-year domain ownership.
Free SSL certificate for extra security.
Automatic email forwarding to your domain.
DNS registration and management tools.

Also, you can purchase extra Domain Privacy+Protection for your domain (costs $8.99/year). In this case, your personal details will not be displayed publicly in the WHOIS/ICANN directories. Plus, the registrar will also run extra security checks.