Your domain is like your telephone number and your web host is like your telephone service provider, very simply put.
When you register a domain, you buy the rights to that domain for a time period and the ability to control what people see in their web browser, then they type in this domain.
Register your domain right away
Remember to register your domain, before you do anything else. Make sure you get your name before someone else does. The price for a .com domain for one year is less than $10. So just go and register the domain. We can change the detailed settings later.
Click here to see if your domain is available.
Domain registration is prepaid on a yearly basis. If you can pay several years up front, you don’t have to remember to renew the registration each year, plus you usually get a bulk-discount.
Part of your domain registration service is the ability to connect your domain to your website’s server. This is called DNS: Domain Name Service. This means that when people write your domain into their web browser, they will instantly see the website stored on your web server.
What is a domain?
Domains are made up of two parts. The domain name and the “top-level-domain”. The Top-level-domain (TLD) is the country-code after the dot in the domain: “com”, “net”, “cn”, “org”, etc.
The domain name is before the dot: “Google”, “Yahoo” or “voxmediagroup”. Domain names are not case-sensitive, meaning “GoOgLe.com” is the same as “google.com” and “GOOGLE.COM”. This part is usually limited to the 25 letters of the English language, numbers and dash (”-”) and underscore (”_”).
International domain names
It is also possible to register a domain using international characters, like ä, ö, ü, ø, å, ñ and so on. You can even use Chinese characters in your domain name. It is not always a good idea to move beyond the English keyboard, because some users are not able to type in these characters. However, the option of international domain names can be a good supplement for your online marketing. Contact us to find out more about international domain names.
Web hosting
Once you have registered your domain, you will need a web hosting service, to get your website up and running. The web host provides a server where the files of your website are located.
Contact us, and we’ll help registering your domain and set up web hosting.
Find related articles in Creating really good websites, Frequently Asked Questions.
