Online
Tutorial
Step 2 - Purchase
your domain!
This has to be one of the most exciting parts
of owning/running a website. You need to decide
on a name for your site and on what kind of site
you wish to have.
Firstly, we need to look at the actual name
of your site and here we have a couple of things
to consider.
It always good to get a name that is truly representative
of what you want to promote/show. If, for instance
you have a site about bulldogs, the best name
would be bulldogs.com, bulldogs.co.za, bulldogs.org
etc.
Very often the name you wanted might already
be taken and you might be forced to look at alternatives.
You might want to consider registering an alternative
like bulldogssa.co.za, sabulldogs.com or even
something like mybulldogsite.net! Be creative,
but try to make sure that by simply looking at
the site name people will know what your site
is about!
If your site name and the topic of your site
are connected, you will also do better with the
search engines. In other words get better placement.
We will chat about that more in later steps,
but it is very prudent to take this into account
now!
I have found that several people have massive
success when they use their site's full name
in their marketing/branding. In other words,
rather than using Bulldogs in your e-mail signatures,
rather use Bulldogs.net for argument sake. This
way people know at a glance what your site address
is and can, and will go visit!
When choosing what type of site you wish to
have, we mean the site extension, i.e. '.com, '.co.za',
.net etc. We will simply refer to these as extensions.
In the 1980s, seven extensions (.com, .edu,
.gov, .int, .mil, .net, and .org) were created.
Domain names may be registered in three of these
(.com, .net, and .org) without restriction; the
other four had limited purposes.
Today there are hundreds of these (one for every
country), but the most popular are:
- The .aero domain is reserved for members
of the air-transport industry.
- The .biz domain is restricted to businesses.
- The .com domain is probably the most popular
of all and can be used for just about everything,
although it was initially intended for companies.
- The .info domain is mostly information sites.
- The .museum domain is reserved for museums
- The .name domain is reserved for individuals
- The .net domain is another common and general
extension similarly used as .com domains.
- The .org domain is intended to serve the
noncommercial community, but all are eligible
to register within .org.
- The .pro domain is restricted to credentialed
professionals and related entities.
- The .edu domain is restricted to educational
institutions.
- The .co.za domain is obviously for South
African sites!
- There are of course many many more.
I would suggest making use of either your own
country's extension (i.e. co.za for South Africa
) if your site is geared to your country or a
.com or .net, if your site visitors are going
to be international.
Sites with .com and .net extensions are obviously
slightly more expensive, but do add incredible
credibility to your site. Especially if you have
a good short name.
Don't however get a .com site if your visitors
are only from South Africa for example. Firstly
it is more expensive and secondly you might have
trouble listing your site in local search engines,
as they will probably only accept local sites!
(in the case of South Africa , .co.za)
So where do you get your domains. Well, for
South Africa , you can purchase your site directly
from the .co.za Domain
Administrators here.
To see if the name you have in mind is available
you can click on "Who is" on the left hand side!
For international domains (.com, .net, .tv etc.
) I would strongly recommend using Go Daddy!
Once again you can see if your name you had
in mind is available from the Go
Daddy site!
Please remember that you will have to have your
hosting company selected before you can truly
own and work on a site. We will be covering this
in more detail in the next step. ( Step 3 )
Also, most hosting companies will also register
your domain for you, for a small fee of course!
This is up to you and your budget!
For the registration of your domain (which by
the way is an annual fee) you might need a credit
card and we would recommend the bluebean
card if you are in South Africa !
Click
here to continue.
