So you have chosen the web hosting option that is right for you and have done some research and finalized a name for your blog or website. Now what?
It’s time to purchase domain names. The steps to this are different depending on the hosting provider you chose, but they probably make this pretty easy for you. In your account’s control panel, look for “registrations” or “manage domains” (or something similar), and for around $10 and in around 10 minutes, you can register a domain and enable it for hosting.
My advice would be to register at a minimum the .com and .net versions of your new domain. You should determine which of those will be your primary site and redirect the other. So, for example, if you visit www.editandpost.net, it will redirect you to www.editandpost.com. Redirects are key because you want visitors and search engines knowing your site by only one address, to strengthen that address’s results in searches.
When you are registering a domain, certain information will be required so that the owner of the domain is visible in engines like Whois. Your hosting provider should have a privacy service that you can take advantage of, so that your personal information is not used for the registration.
Other options for registration are the .co.uk version of your domain, .info, .mobi, .biz, .org, etc.
After you have registered your domain and set it up for hosting, you will be ready to do some basic set-up on your server and install WordPress! Aren’t you excited?
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Here’s a question (maybe for a future post). When some people register their domain, they do not make their registration private – therefore releasing their personal information. How can someone make sure this doesn’t happen?
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it’s a great question, and i hope i covered it in this post – most domain registration services and hosting providers have a privacy service that you can take advantage of when you register your domain. some provide the service for free and others make you pay a small amount, but it’s definitely worth it! when you register your domain, the option should be available to you.
are there other ways that you know of? please share!
and can you make the address private too? i couldn’t tell from above whether or not you have to include your residential address.
thanks! and i love this blog – GREAT tips and so easy to follow!
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Hi Tiffany! Thanks for the kind words. :)
Yep, you can make your address and phone number private too.
great! thanks!!
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Ami, can you give direction on how to redirect domain names to the main domain name?