Why should you have your own domain name?
This
article tells you why you must register your own domain name.
After reading this article, you can perform domain name registration
now.
In 1989, I got my first account on a machine that was connected
to the Internet, years before there was even a graphical Web
browser, or even a Web, for that matter. Then, practically
the only domain names in use belonged to colleges & universities,
government agencies, the military, a few organizations concerned
with the development of the Internet itself and a handful
of big high-tech companies. I wrote home from college to tell
my parents to "get ready, it's going to take over."
Now, fifteen years later, it has, and most companies of all
sizes and shapes have websites, hundreds of millions of people
have at least one e-mail address and people use the Internet
to find out all kinds of information, from driving directions
to weather forecasts to bank account balances.
So how do you set yourself or your business apart on the
Net with a unique presence? There's one way -- establish your
own domain name, like "yourcompany.com". Registering
a domain name used to be a daunting process; but now, there
are companies set up for the purpose of taking care of the
red-tape for you. Nowadays, it's as easy as deciding what
name you want to claim, finding out if it's available (and
that's automated!) and then registering it for yourself if
it is. Then it's yours to keep as long as you (or the company
you choose to handle it) renew your registration every year.
Think about it. You can have the same email addresses for
the rest of your life and even pass them down to your children
or company. You are now in total control of never losing contact
via your email addresses. (or something like this)
When you combine it with proper website and e-mail hosting,
the establishment of your unique domain name gives you several
advantages:
1) It increases your name recognition and allows your friends,
family or customers to remember more easily how to find you
and your site. It's a lot easier to remember www.example.com
than it is to remember www.free-hosting.com/business/~example.
2) Domain name registration gives you a more serious and
professional "appearance" on the Net. Even if they
allowed it and could handle the volume of traffic, hosting
a busy commercial website on an individual's free web space
or on a free server like GeoCities isn't very practical or
professional.
3) It helps brand your image and adds a level of trust and
integrity to your site. You don't want to be the attorney
at the city club with an e-mail address like joelaw38@hotmail.com
when everybody's passing out their business cards!
4) It helps people find you through search engines. Sites
like Yahoo! and Google have taken on immense importance, and
getting your site in users' search results is key to establishing
new relationships with them. Many search engines only index
the first page of a site with a domain name, and some refuse
to list pages on free hosting sites at all!
5) Nobody else will get the name that you need. In the early
days of the Web, people would register domain names later
to be coveted by large corporations; and a few made lots of
money selling their rights to those names before the practice
was made illegal. But even now, anyone with a business similar
to yours may lay claim to the perfect name and you'd have
to settle for a less desirable choice.
6) It gives you a permanent "anchor" for your Internet
identity. Even if you're not ready to establish a website,
you can still register the name now and use it later. Most
domain name registration services will allow you to "park"
your domain for as long as you wish without really doing anything
with it.
7) E-mail addresses hosted in association with your domain
name will not change, even if you switch ISPs or temporarily
lose your access during a move, for example.
Until fairly recently, all the great reasons to establish
your own domain name were outweighed for an individual or
small-business by the difficulty of actually doing it. That
has changed, however, and finding a hosting provider who will
set you up with your own domain, e-mail and a website is easy
and inexpensive. It doesn't make any sense at all for a business,
or even an individual, to go another day without taking this
step forward. The Internet is here to stay -- it's important
to make sure that your Internet identity is too.
Domain
Name Registration, click here
Web
hosting, click here
About the Author
Trevor Bauknight is a web designer and writer with over 15
years of experience on the Internet. He specializes in the
creation and maintenance of business and personal identity
online and can be reached at trevor@tryid.com. Stop by http://www.cafeid.com
for a free tryout of the revolutionary SiteBuildingSystem
and check out our super Flash website and IMAP e-mail hosting
solutions, complete with live support.
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