There are many places for you to host your first website for free. You may even want to start off with a free service such as http://geocities.com or http://angerfire.com. But if you intend to stick around for long you must register your own domain name.
There are a few good reasons that you should do this:
- Your customers will find it easier to remember you. A short domain will make people to remember, like http://www.flowershop.com is better then http://www.freelinkhere.com/31254/texas/hostfree/flowershop/index.html.
- It is definitely more professional. Your visitors or customers will feel you are doing serious business online.
- Save money on stationery. No need to reprint business cards and letterheads when you change Internet Service Provider. Your internet address remains the same.
- Distinguish yourself from competitors with a unique identity.
- Increase your credibility with your own address yourname@yourdomain.com instead of using a free email address such as yourname@yahoo.com.
- Attract traffic to your site. By using keywords in your domain name, search engines are more likely to retrieve your website in their search results.
- Have a fixed address. If you move premises, your customers can contact you by email or look on your website to find out where you have physically relocated.
- Easier to get your site registered with search engines, and help your ranking on global search engines.
- An asset to your business. Just as your stock, contents, property and goodwill are valuable to your business, so to, a quality domain name can be an asset to you. Over time your web reputation will be established using a particular domain name, and if you decide to sell your business, this online component will add to the equity of your business.
Where should I register my domain name?
You could register your domain at Go Daddy, Netfirms, and 1&1 Internet Inc.
Make sure you register your domain name under $10 per year for .com, .net, or .org. For more information about domain extension, you can read more here. If you want to check domain name availability you can check here.
