Posted: December 2nd, 2009
Choosing a domain name is the single most important decision you will make when building a website. Your domain name is your branding, it’s your identity on the Internet. It’s how people will find your site. The key is finding the right domain name that people will remember, but will also suit your needs as a business owner. This article will show you some of the traps you should avoid when choosing a your domain name and provide helpful information and advice on exactly which of current types; .com, .co.uk, .net etc. you should choose and why. Read on.
What’s in a name?
Three and a half years ago when I was first setting up my company I was faced with the difficult task of not only creating a company from scratch, but also creating my branding, design and choosing a domain name for the website. As you can appreciate, there are a quite a few web design companies in the UK. It seemed that every time I had an idea for a great domain name and design I would look up the registration details and would find that another company or individual had already purchased that name. It took me a while. I was thinking along the lines of I.T and the web for my company, because after all, that’s would I would be doing. After about a week of getting nowhere I started to approach the problem from a different angle. I thought about Amazon. Here was a company that had nothing to do with the Amazon, but had chosen that domain name for their online business. This got my wheels turning. I didn’t have to choose a technical sounding name. I just needed to find something that was available and that would be easy to remember for people. If it worked for Amazon, it could work for me right?
With this thought in mind I remembered that a couple of months before I’d been asked to produce a new company logo for another web design company. Of the designs I’d submitted they narrowed their choice down to the final two. One of the designs featured a blue square and the other featured a yellow circle. In the end they decided to go with the blue square design as it used less colours and would therefore be cheaper for them to get printed. OK, I thought to myself, they didn’t go with yellow circle, so maybe I should. After a quick who-is search I found that the domain name; www.yellowcircle.co.uk was available. I registered it immediately. This was the perfect domain name for me. It had significance to me, so that whenever anyone asked “Why yellow circle?” I had an interesting answer and secondly it’s very easy to remember. It’s a colour and a shape. Far easier than something technical sounding. It also helped me to stand out and be different from my competition. Perfect.
Things to remember when choosing your domain name
Below I’ve listed some pointers for you to help you choose the right domain name for your site.
- Keep it simple
- Don’t choose words that people may misspell
- If you’re only trading in one country you should obtain the domain name type for that country e.g. in the United Kingdom you would choose .co.uk
- If you’re trading internationally then a .com domain name is the type to go for
- If you’re a charity you should choose a .org domain name type
- .com domain names are (usually) registered for a 1 year period. Registration renewal is required every 12 months
- .co.uk domain names are registered for a 2 year period and require bi-annual renewal
- A .com domain name usually costs a little more than .co.uk or .org domain name
- You can transfer your domain name to any web hosting company, you don’t have to host your site with the company you purchased the domain name from
- You can register more than one domain name for a website. Each domain name can be set up to point to the same website
Sites you can use to check if a domain name is available
You can use the sites listed below to check domain name availability.
You may find that a domain name you’re seeking has already been registered. However, it may be possible for you to be able to purchase the domain name from the current owner. Often contact details of the domain name owner are displayed on the websites mentioned above. If you feel that you need the domain name someone else already has you can get in touch with the current owner and ask if they’re prepared to sell it to you. Obviously this costs money, but sometimes it may be worth it.
Final Thoughts
I’m hoping you find the above information useful and will consider it when you need to purchase your next website domain name. I’m happy to provide help to anyone (whether they’re a client of mine or not) on this or any other matter relating to web hosting, web design and SEO services.
Written by Ian Hazeldine, Managing Director of Yellow Circle Web Solutions Limited, a web design and hosting company based in Staffordshire, UK
Tags: Advice, Domain Name Registration, Domain Names, Web hosting
Posted in Domain Names, Web hosting | 9 Comments »
Posted: September 30th, 2009
So you’ve got your new website built and it’s ready to go live. Now you need to host it somewhere so that it can actually be viewed by users on the Internet. But how do you know which company to put your site with? After all there are literally thousands to choose from. We’ve put together a list of features and things to consider when choosing the right host and the right hosting package for your website.
Choosing your web hosting company
There are several factors to consider when choosing a web hosting company, the most important of which we’ve listed below.
- How reliable is their service? It’s no good having a website if the server it’s hosted on keeps going down. You need to look at the level of service guarantee offered by the hosting company. No company can say for certainty that they are able to offer a 100% uptime guarantee, but a good company will be able to offer (and more importantly deliver) a 99.9% uptime guarantee for your site.
- Technical support - This is extremely important. No matter what there will be a time when everyone, experts and non-IT experts alike will need to contact their hosting company for some sort of techincal support. A company that doesn’t provide good techinical support is no good at all. You should look at the different methods available for obtaining technical support from your web hosts. At the very least they should provide email and telephone support and a good company will also provide further levels of support on top of that for businesses and organisations that require a higher response rate than normal.
- What limits do they place on web traffic? - something that non-technical people may overlook is the fact that a lot of web hosting companies charge extra for sites that have a lot of web traffic. Your hosting may have been cost effective when you set it up but if you’re getting additional bills each month because your website is generating more traffic than your current host allows it may be costly in the long-run. Make sure you read all the details of the hosting package that you’re purchasing so that you know what your limits are before your site goes live. You should also be aware that not all web hosting companies place limits on web traffic.
- Which server type should you choose Windows or Linux? – the answer to this questions is pretty straightforward. If your website uses PHP coding then you should choose a linux server, if you’re using classic ASP or ASP.NET then you will need a windows server. Your web designer should also confirm this with you if they’re arranging hosting for you.
Choosing the right hosting package for you
You will find that a web hosting provider has several different packages available so you should be able to find one that’s right for your site. The list below details some of the factors you should consider about your own website when choosing your hosting package:
- How large is your site in terms of number of pages? - larger sites need more web space than smaller sites
- How many visitors do you estimate your site will receive on a monthly basis? – remember those web traffic limits we’ve talked about previously? Now’s the time to check out exactly what limits (if any) will be imposed. The higher your number of visitors, the more web traffic your site will generate
- How often will your site be updated? – again look at the web traffic limitations when factoring in site updates as changes you make to the site when uploading new files will be counted as web traffic
- Are you using a content management system? - if so you will need to look at a hosting package that provides database support such as MySQL and PHP Scripting. Cheap and cheerful hosting packages will not allow you to do this.
- Does your site use video or audio files? – If you’re using a lot of multimedia files within your site you will need to ensure that your hosting package provides enough space on the server for all of your files. You may even want to look at hosting packages that offer unlimited web space in some cases.
- How many email addresses will you be requiring? – this can quite often be overlooked and it’s an important factor to consider. You don’t want to be paying £25 – £50 each time you want a new email account adding to your domain. Make sure you double check the number of email accounts the hosting package you’re choosing provides so that you don’t get caught out by further charges later on.
All of the above questions will determine the type of hosting package you will need. As a rule of thumb, the bigger the site and the more often it is updated, the higher the grade of hosting package you will require.
So what can I do if I’m not happy with my current hosting company?
Firstly, don’t worry. It’s entirely possible to change hosting companies. You should consider all of the points above when choosing your new web host. As always it’s adviseable to read customer testimonials, or even better speak to people that you know who have a website and ask them for an account of their experiences with their current host.
We’ve helped out lots of people that have approached us as they were not happy with either the price they were paying with their hosting company, or the level of service they were receiveing. They asked us to find them a new and better service and we were able to do just that often providing more features for a lot less money.
If you need any help, feel free to ask us
Should you wish to find out more information about the hosting packages that we provide for clients please visit our web hosting page. We can offer unlimited web hosting with unlimted emails and a free .co.uk domain name for £75 per year. Or if you simply want some information, but are not looking to buy right now please feel free to leave a comment on this blog or contact us directly.
Thank you for reading.
Tags: Advice, Happy clients, Testimonials, Tips, Web hosting, Web traffic
Posted in Web hosting | 7 Comments »
