I just wanted to leave a couple more posts regarding domain names before I move into information on web design, web hosting & search engine optimization. There are quite a few things you can do with a domain name once you’ve found a domain that works for you. What you do really depends on what you plan to do with the domain name. I don’t want to make this a boring post so I’ll just list a few domain name basics with a brief explanation.

1. Web Hosting – If you plan on actually putting up a website you’ll need to purchase a web hosting plan. This is the space on a web server that you place the files that make up your website. There are a lot of options in regards to web hosting and I’ll be covering that in an upcoming post.

2. Domain Forwarding – If you have a current website you can just forward a domain name to your current website. This is something that’s very common with real estate agents. For example, a Remax agent gets a Remax provided website address such as http://ww1.remax.com/associates/243443433.asp.

Obviously this isn’t something to put on a business card so they register their full name, if available, as a domain name. They then simply forward TheirNewDomain.com to http://ww1.remax.com/associates/243443433.asp. This makes it much easier for them to give their website address & looks much more professional.

3. Email Accounts – Many times people will register a domain name simply to use for email purposes. Rather than using a free email service such as Yahoo or HotMail, many people would like to have a custom email address. For example, say your name is Bill Smith, rather than using a Yahoo email address such as bill_smith2008@yahoo.com you could search for a domain that represents your name, your interests or just about anything else that you want.

Then assume that you were able to register Smith.com, which you wouldn’t be able to do but for explanation reasons let’s assume it’s available. You would then be able to setup any email address you want such as Bill@Smith.com, Sales@Smith.com, Info@Smith.com, etc. There are a few email addresses that you can’t use such as www@YourDomain.com but other than a few your options are limitless.

4. Domain Parking – If you have a great idea for a website or think that you’ve found a domain name that may be valuable you can simply register the domain name and ‘park’ it. This is simply a page showing that the domain is registered and/or Coming Soon. A few things about park pages is that you can park a domain name with a company such as NameDrive.com which will display ads on your website and if someone were to type in your domain and click on one of those ads you would earn a percentage of the revenue earned on that click.

That’s about it for the domain name basics, there are a few more options but these are the 4 main reasons for registering a domain name. I’m sure that I’ll receive an email saying that I left something off the list but like I mentioned, these are the 4 main reasons for registering a domain name.

Best regards,
David Lalumendre
www.WebsiteToad.com