How to Buy a Domain Name

How do you buy a domain name? I am asked this question a lot by bloggers and small businesses wanting to start a new website or change their URL to something more “professional.” Purchasing a custom domain name is probably the cheapest and easiest thing you can do to “brand” your website. It looks so much more professional to visit mywebsitename.com rather than mywebsitename.wordpress.com or mywebsitename.blogspot.com doesn’t it? Plus, it’s much shorter to fit onto those business cards I know you’re planning to print.

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Personally, I refer all my clients to Namecheap.com to purchase their domain names for a few reasons.

1. I’ve been using them for years and they have excellent customer service.
2. Their name is very true – they are some of the cheapest domain names you can buy. (Almost always under $11/year and free WhoisGuard for the first year.) Definitely cheaper than registering through your hosting provider which will usually charge $15-23/year for the same services.
3. By registering a domain separate from a hosting account like Bluehost or Hostgator, or a blogging service like WordPress.com or Blogger.com, it’s really easy and hassle-free to move your domain to a new site later on if you want to upgrade to self-hosted or change your hosting provider. I love to keep options open when it comes to something as important as a domain name.

It’s pretty simple to sign up for a domain name with Namecheap, but there’s a couple important things you should be sure to do when you purchase your domain.

How to Buy a Domain Name

1. Hop over to Namecheap.com and type your desired new domain name in the box on the homepage to see if it’s available (ie “yourcoolname.com”). I typically recommend using .com when possible since it’s what most people expect, but .net is also fairly common. .org is usually reserved for non-profits, so it can be a good choice if you’re a non-profit, but I’d steer clear of it if you’re not. (Plus .org costs more!)
2. Choose your desired domain name from the list and click the add to cart button beside it.
3. Click “View Cart” on the right side bar.
4. Pop over to their coupon page to find a coupon code to use and enter it in the promo code box on the right. They share some great coupons every month, so I always stop by here. Currently code “SPOOKYNAMES” saves a few dollars on new domain names. 🙂
5. *Important* Make sure autorenew is set to “on” for both your domain name and WhoisGuard**. This will make sure that your credit card is always charged before your domain name expires. Which is important if you want your site to keep working and you don’t want your domain to expire and be bought up out from under you. (This has happened to a client before.)
   
6. You don’t usually need any of that other stuff at the bottom if you’re working with us on a site, or if you’re attaching this to WordPress.com or Blogger.
7. Confirm your order at the bottom, create a new account, enter all your credit card info and select “Pay Now” at the bottom. Since your credit card will be used to auto-renew next year, make sure it’s kept up to date so your domain name doesn’t lapse!  

Now you own a domain name! If you’re working with us for a new site, be sure and send over your namecheap information so we can set it up on your site for you. I’ll have another tutorial soon explaining how to add your new domain to WordPress.com or a Blogger site if that’s what you’re working with.

**Legal requirements say that domain names must be registered with the name and contact info of the domain owner. WhoisGuard is a service that registers their info for you as a proxy and then keeps your personal info securely on file in case of federal inquiry. Personally, I don’t want you to be able to look up my domain name and find my name, address, phone number, etc so I ALWAYS recommend using WhoisGuard on your domains and setting it to autorenew so your personal info isn’t easily public.