Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur’s Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.
You developed an idea to sell products or services on the Internet. Now, the next most important step is selecting a domain name.
At the cost of a few dollars a year, the right domain name helps your business develop a recognizable online brand. It promotes name recognition among your customers and keeps them coming back to the right place.
When you set up a standard account with an Internet Service Provider (ISP), you’re allocated an e-mail address and, in most cases, a Web site at the ISP’s domain. The e-mail address and the URL belong to the ISP. If you switch service providers, you will have to change both of them.
A domain name that you register and control essentially makes your Web site and e-mail address portable. You get the flexibility of being able to change your hosting service without having to also change your Web and e-mail addresses.
And remember a good domain name should be short and memorable.
It’s estimated that there are 112 million registered domains with .com. You can register a domain name with a domain registrar. Annual costs to register a domain are set by each registrar, but are typically less than $50 annually.