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So you want to get a domain name for your business do you?? Do you know what is involved in taking this giant leap onto the Internet? It's not all a bed of roses believe you me, especially if you are going to do it yourself. I guess cost wise this is the most cost effective way to achieve your goal but if you aren't careful then you can waste a lot of time and energy and hair being perplexed at all the questions being asked of you.

Setting up a business on the web can be a time consuming thing if u want to go it alone and organise it all yourself when you are not sure what you have to do/get/say/provide. There are so many questions to be answered before you can get those brilliantly designed, eye catching pages onto a site, believe me I did that option myself as I couldn't afford the cost of hiring a consultant when I first started out.

First off you need to decide what name you want to call your business/company - keep in mind that the name may already be taken so you may have to have some secondary spellings either with a - in-between words or slang word versions of your name. Take some time out, sit down with pen and paper at the ready and think of some names that suit. Remember that your domain name will start with http:// and usually will be www.yourname.com or .net or if you are an Organisation it will end with .org.

Once you have a list of your preferred names your next step is to go see if any of those names are still available for use.

http://www.networksolutions.com is the official site of Internic the place where you apply for your domain name. You can go there for the following a: to check to see if any of your name versions are available b: to actually reserve your name c: to pay for the cost of "hiring" your domain name. d: to ask any questions/queries about your domain name.

The cost of "hiring" your domain name is a cost of $35US a year with an initial payment of $70US for the first two years lease.

. To actually fill out your domain name request there can be quite difficult as they ask alot of questions that you probably can't answer until you acquire a host who can do all the technical stuff for you like hook your domain up to its own unique dns number ie: 216.110.6.93

To get around this there are other sites on the next that can do your registering for you. Places like http://www.register.com can register your web site for you and charge your immediately through a secure credit card sale and ONLY charge you for the internic fees, they do not charge any administration fees or else you could use a site called http://www.easyhost.com which registers the domain name for you on your behalf but doesn't not charge you up front.

The invoice for the domain name will come from Network Solutions direct ie through email with a hard copy sent via snail mail. You then in turn must either a: send payment by check or money order to them within 30 days or you can pay by credit card through their secure payment site. Network Solutions will in turn once payment has been confirmed, send an email to you confirming payment and your domain name. Please always save a copy of the information that they send you incase at any stage in the future you have problems.

Your next job is to find a host. Hosts come in many shapes, sizes and forms. From the min support through to the big hierarchy company type size. It all depends on what you want from your hosting company as to what type of hosting options you look at. Things you need to look at and decide on are Amount of email addresses, do you require more than 3 email addresses (which is pretty much the standard these days)

Size of space on the server - how much space are they allowing you to use for your domain.

Access to your account - is it unlimited or do you have to pay extra if you go over an above a certain amount of usage each month

Unlimited hits on your site (or do you want to pay extra if you go ABOVE the max allowable hits per month)

Bandwidth amount - How much stuff you can send through a connection. Usually measured in bits-per-second.

Do they have Microsoft FrontPage Server extensions (only for those designers that use MS FrontPage to design their website)

Security of your site - how safe is your information on their site? Do they ensure that their site is free of viruses and other lurgies??

Do they provide credit card facility or shopping cart facility for you to utilize.

Do you require access to Mailing List facilities?

Do they provide full back up service? Do they have a great technical service you can contact if something goes wrong? . All these things and more are really important so you need to be thinking in the long term rather than in the immediate future. It is best again to sit down and work out on paper what you are looking for in a host. Ask yourself what are your immediate needs and what you may think your needs will be in the future. Look for hosts that offer your immediate needs but also may offer those services you may need in the future. You probably wont get all you want but you should be able to find a host that will do over 85% of your requirements, but of course the more you require the more it will probably cost you.

Once you have determined what you require of a host then you can go host hunting. Most hosts start at approx. $7.95 US a month up to and over $150US a month depending on your needs. Most hosts require a set up fee and this can cost anywhere from $50.00US up to and over $300.00US depending again on the dept and scope of your site. Be aware that they also may require a months hosting cost in advance.

Personally I would look first at http://www.edirectamerica.com they have a ton of different options and rates start at about $18.95US a month which is really reasonable for what support and services they offer.

or you could go to a place like http://www.webhostlist.com which has a full list of most available web domain hosting companies around and pick and choose from there.

When you find a host you like then I guess you better look at signing up with them. Pretty much all of them will ask you for all your personal details and a credit card number to bill the monthly charges to. Be sure and read all the fine print before you send off your application in case there is something you don't understand. Most hosts offer a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page within their site and it would be a good idea to read through these before you sign up just to see what could or might happen to you at some stage in the future.

Once your application has been approved, the hosting company will, on your behalf, contact Network Solutions to arrange for the transfer of the dns number. This may take a few days to get all the kinks ironed out so be patient. The hosting company will in turn email you with directions on how to FTP (File Transfer Protocol) your site pages up to their server, usually with FTP address, login name and password. This usually means that a folder has been prepared for you on their server and you are now free to upload your pages.

Provided everything goes according to plan between the three parties (that being yourself, your hosting company chosen and Network Solutions) your site should be up and running in all its glory within 5 days maximum. If not make sure your first port of call is with your hosting company so that they can check out what is wrong. They in turn, on your behalf, will contact Network Solutions, if they cannot fix the problem.

Other than that, that should be it. That is basically the "What U Need To Know" when it comes to getting a domain name. I hope that this has been of some help to you and if you don't want to do this yourself then feel free to contact me to do this on your behalf. You see now I am a Consultant. Its amazing what you can do after you have had some practice.

http://www.thehomeoffice.net

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