• How-to

Like the name of your company, a domain name is what people will know you by and will use to visit your homepage. While you can always create microsites to supplement your main homepage, a good domain name is very important and also makes good business sense.

In India, certain sites like www.irctc.co.in are today synonymous with ticketing for Indian railways and is a very good example of how a long name like the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd. has been abbreviated to form IRCTC.

Finding the right name
Your domain name must be easy to remember. It should be consistent with your business and should not be some abstract extension of your work. Make sure it clearly sums up what your website is. Keep the term small and simple. Another important aspect is to use words that come up often in searches.

For example, words like flowers, wine, movies are frequently searched and a keyword having such names will put your site on top when it comes to searches. If it has been already taken, then try out different variations.

Checking availability
When you decide on your domain name, there is a high probability that someone else might have bought it already. Many individuals register domain names in the hope that someone desperate enough for that domain name would cough up large sums to buy it in the future.

In case you find that your domain name has already been taken, you can get in touch with the person who has registered the name and ask him or her to sell it to you. The price for the sale will vary wildly and the process of establishing contact tiresome. It is better, in such cases, to look for an alternate name for your domain.

Find a company to register it for you
The internet will throw up multiple sites that generate such names for a decent price. Dot-com domains are the most expensive and addresses like .co, .in or .org tend to be cheaper. A typical domain name will cost you Rs.400-Rs.700 a year to keep it registered. It does not matter which country you are in and what currency you are dealing in, but you may want to deal with a company in India in case something goes wrong.

Buying the domain name
You are only buying rights to the name and you will not be able to buy any of the files which make a website yet. The domain name is generally bought for one year and renewed every year. Once you’ve founded your company, the domain name can be normally bought online. It will take time to register, sometimes one working day, but it’s generally done within a few hours.

Once registered, you will get a password and login from the company, which allows you to access the site. You can now set up the homepage and change it when you want to.

©Entrepreneur November 2010

Tags:
domain name