You need/want/must have a website. What do you do first? Let me give you a hint…it starts with r…e…g…i…s…t…e…r…

Register! Good job! Give yourself a cookie. Register what? Well, your domain name, of course. Here are the most commonly asked questions we get asked about this process.

1. How much does it cost? It will vary, but usually a domain name costs around $10 a year. If you want private registration, you will have to pay an additional yearly fee.
2. What is private registration? All domain name owners are registered in the Whois database. Basically, if you don’t have private registration, your name will be listed, along with your address. The only real hassle for us is the junk mail that we get because of it. At least twice a week, we get mail from people telling us that they will “register our domain name with the top search engines for the low, low price of $35 per month!!!!!!!!” This is such a rip-off, and I pray that no one ever ever pays for this.
3. My host is offering me a free domain. Isn’t that cool? Well, yes and no. If you love your host and you trust them completely with your web existence, then sure…go for it. Reputable hosts should not be a problem. But let me present a scenario, just for the sake of being a pessimistic stick-in-the mud.

Let’s say you order a hosting package (more on that in another article), and they give you a free domain name. It’s yours to keep, no strings attached. Score for you! And then let’s say that you have a problem. Perhaps your website is down for a whole day, and you are unable to reach anyone (BIG problem.) Or perhaps they have a snarky customer service department and you no longer want to do business with them. You decide to go elsewhere.

Say you order hosting from somewhere else. In normal circumstances, you would then go to your domain name registrant and switch over the DNS records to point to your new host. But what if your host manages your domain? See where the problem could lie?

I have heard horror stories of vindictive hosts freezing access to a domain for days. I would hope these are just stories, but really there’s no way of knowing what kind of hoops you will have to go through to manage your domain before signing up for your hosting package. And if you are on less than sunny terms with those people, then you might be in for a ride.

Bottom line: order your domain name from someone other than your hosting provider. It’s only around $10 a year, and it keeps your bases covered in case you want to switch hosts later on.

4. How do you register a domain?

Registration is a pretty simple process. Currently, I host all of my domains over at GoDaddy. That way, they’re all in the same place. Ordering domain names is pretty much like ordering any other product online. You search for it, make sure it’s available, add it to your cart, and check out. That’s it! There’s no magic complicated process for registering a domain name. It’s pretty straightforward.

So don’t be afraid…go ahead and order that domain you love. Even if you’re not ready to use it today, it’s good to get it registered so that someone else doesn’t snatch it up before you do. I personally have 8 domain names registered in my name, both for current projects and future ones. This is not normal, but it should reassure you in case you are feeling a little strange about registering a domain name without a clear plan for its use.