If you have a website or want to start a new website, you’ve probably thought a little about your domain name (the address of your website). Domain names are leased from ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (sounds fascinating, huh? You can find them at http://icann.org). Us regular folks don’t interact directly with ICANN, but instead with companies that manage the registration and handling of your domain name for a small fee.

How to Register a Name

To register a domain name you can go to one of these common websites:

• GoDaddy.com – while GoDaddy is pretty popular, my personal opinion is that they have some ethics issues and I don’t feel their service is the best. That said, they’re a good and affordable domain registrar. Be careful of upselling, and I would steer clear of their web hosting services.
• MyDomain.com and NameCheap.com are both great options to acquire a domain name.
• There are many, many websites that do domain registration. The above sites are some good options.

To get a .com, .net, or .org domain name, you should probably be prepared to spend about $10-$15 per year. Domains need to be renewed each year (sometimes you can do multi-year leasings or renewals).

When using one of these sites, always remember to keep your username and password in a safe place where you can find it later. You will need it again someday.

Renewing your Domain Name

Renewing a domain name is usually as easy as logging back in to the registrar website, clicking “renew” and paying your $10-$15. This is why it’s important to keep track of your username and password.

Remember that you will ONLY be interacting with the domain registrar (that is, GoDaddy, MyDomain, NameCheap, or any other one you use) for domain name management.

A scam I’ve come across

I’ve received a couple form letters from the Domain Registry of America. This is a Canada-based company (great name, or what?) that provides domain name registration at very high prices ($19 – $30 per year) and sends official-looking letters with the intent of misleading you into registering your domain with them. Here’s a scan of the letter (click for bigger):

Basically, they’ve scraped domain name information to find out that my domain name is expiring in a few months, and they are sending me a letter that looks like a bill that I can fill out and send back with all my info. It’s a shady way to get customers.

The biggest thing to remember is what I said earlier: You will only be interacting with the company that you registered the domain name with. No other company, no matter how official-sounding their name is, has any authority over registering your domain name with ICANN.

For more details about the Domain Registry of America, see an article I wrote on my own website some time ago.

Finding a domain name

This is the fun part – brainstorming to figure out what your name on the web will be. There are a few approaches that could work for you:

• If you haven’t named your company yet, think about getting a memorable domain name and using it for the name of the company too. For example, I’ve heard of a company that simply scanned a list of available 5-letter .com names and picked one that sounded cool.
• Think of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) value to your domain name. That is, what will people be searching for on Google that will lead to your website? If you’re a copywriter in Salem, you might want a name like “salemcopywriter.com”. This example raises another issue, though – make sure it’s a name that will be easy to tell people, without having to explain (“It’s w-r-i-t-e-r, not r-i-g-h-t-e-r”) .
• Online tools like BustAName.com and Domai.nr can help you brainstorm for domain names.

Best of luck to you! Do you have any questions or comments? Write a comment below – if someone else has the same question, it could help them out too.