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An important part of setting up and running an affiliate site is finding an appropriate domain name.

In this post, I am going to look at Finding and Registering a Domain Name. I will look at how you can find the most effective available domain name and what to look for in a domain name registrar.

Finding and Registering a Domain Name

What is a Domain Name?

A domain name is a human-friendly method for reaching a website. Instead of remembering the actual IP address, an internet surfer can type in a domain name, such as www.passiveincomejet.com.

How Do I Choose a Domain Name?

The first step before you registers a domain name is actually coming up with a suitable idea. How you do this is up to you – with a computer or with pen and paper – pick your favorite brainstorming method.

Three types of domain names

For me, there are three types of domain names.

• Niche-related domain names.
• Arbitrary domain names.
• Using your name as a domain name.

Niche-related domain names.

 These are the domain name that contains a keyword or a niche in them when you tell someone your domain name they can just figure out what your site is about without telling them anything.

For example, if I tell you that my domain name is passiveicomejet.com, you already know that it is about passive income if I tell you that my domain name is smartgasdetection.com you know it is a blog about gas detection.

How to find niche-related domain names?

The idea of niche-related domain names is that you have a niche included in your domain name, for example, If you are in the cooking niche here is what you can do.

• Use a name – Is cooking.com or cookingtips.com  taken? You can go with saracookingtips.com.( if your name is Sara). This is actually a good domain name as it adds a personal touch, just make sure it is easy to pronounce.
• Use a “the” – since cookingtips.com was taken, You can get thecookingtips.com. Facebook.com started out as TheFacebook.com, so you’re in good company! Just check what sort of site is at the original (cookingtips.com) first. If it’s an established site with a strong brand you might want to back off. If it’s just someone squatting (there is no website at the moment) you should be good to go.
• Use an adjective – Put a describing word at the start. How about bestcookingtips.com, smatcookingtips.com, etc? 

If you can find a domain name that includes the keyword in it, it will be great, this is my recommended approach, but if you can not find anything like that keep reading.

Arbitrary domain names.

These are domain names that have nothing to do with the content in it, the good example of this is shoutmeloud.com, which is one of the most famous blogs in the blogging niche but it does not include the word blogging in it.

This is a clear indication that the name does not that much, just pick one and go on with it. 

Using your name as a domain name.

If you can not find a domain name with a niche in it or an arbitrary word that you can use as a domain name, just go with your name.

Two years ago I created sekihudson.com and it was ranking the first page in Google for many keywords, that is before I decided to take all contents down for a personal reason.

Again here the key is that the blog name should be easy to pronounce and short.

Tips for choosing a good domain name

When selecting the domain name for your online business you should consider these three criteria.

It should be short 

Your domain name should be 3 words or fewer with a max of 20 characters excluding “.com”), for example, makemoneywithpaul.com is not recommended but successwithpaul.com is recommended.

Hint: The first one has 4 words while the second one has 3 words.

It should end with “.com” 

I recommend getting a domain name that ends with .com,  the main reason for this is that if you have a brandable domain name and you tell someone about it, they will assume that it ends with .com and if someone else has that .dom extension you will be sending them a lot of free traffic.

If you can not get a .com you can get a .net or .org but always try to find a .com first.

It shouldn’t be hyphenated

So you figure out that your favorite domain is taken, do not go with a hyphen, for example, if makemoneyonline.com is taken do not go with make-money-online.com, this is bad for branding, and it looks spammy, you will lose a lot of potential customers for this, do not do it.

Make it easy to remember

This is important, you are going to put a lot of effort to build your brand, and if it is very difficult to remember it will be very difficult to retain some visitors.

You want it to be easy for people to remember and type into their browsers without frequent misspelling incidents. It also seems more professional.

Where can I buy a domain name?

When it comes to buying a domain name you have two options, you can buy a domain name with hosting from the same company or you can buy hosting and a domain name separately.

 You can buy your domain name through your web host.

Most of the hosting companies will give a free domain when you register with them, some even give you a free domain for life.

This is a good deal especially if you are just starting out, the main reason is that it can simplify things and save you a lot of time and hurdles, as the company will set everything up for you.

The drawback to this is that in the future if you want to leave the hosting company, most of them will take hostage of your domain name, even those who offer the free domain name for life, the offer will end when you want to leave the hosting company, and the worst part of it some of them they won’t release it or they will charge you a  lot of money for it.

A lot of hosting providers will offer special discounts on domain names, or they might even offer you a free domain “for life”. Buying your domain through the same company as you get your hosting can simplify things considerably if it’s your first time since the company will hook everything together for you.

You can also buy your domain name and hosting separately.

This is a good option if you want to be sure you have control over your domain names. This requires a bit more work on your side since you’ll need to point your domain at your hosting manually.

I register all my domain names with Namecheap.

Step 1: To register your domain name just go to namecheap.com

 

Step 2: Type in the domain name you want to register the click search.

 

Step 3: Select the desired extension and then click on add to cart.

Step 4: Click the checkout button.

 

Step 5:At checkout if you have a coupon code you can add it.

Step 6: After clicking confirm order they will ask you either to log in if you have an account or to create a new account if you are new.

Step 7: After login in or creating a new account you will see a pay button, chose a payment method that you like, and pay for your domain name.

Congratulations you just registered your domain name.

Final words

So that is the process of finding and registering a domain name, hope at this point you have a domain name, and ready to take your online business to the next level, comment on your domain name below so that I can check it.