You may have started off in the wide world of blogging at a free blog host such as Blogger or WordPress where you were given a subdomain of their main site. It looked something like http://youblogname.blogspot.com.
Those are great services to get your blogging skills off to a start and you may even keep your blog there. But if you want to establish your own piece of internet real estate rather than renting space from somewhere else you may want to get your very own domain.
Getting a domain name couldn’t be easier. All you have to do is Google the words “domain name” and up pops hundreds of places you can buy domains from. Many have hosting options you can choose from but that’s for another article. If you’re just looking to secure your domain name of choice, don’t worry about hosting for right now. You can always re-direct or upgrade your account through your registrar later.
The registrar is the company you register your domain through and the company that you manage your domain options through. I find that GoDaddy works really well for registering domains even though some people don’t like the Goliath and there are definitely cheaper places out there.
All you have to do to register through a company like GoDaddy is sign-up for a free account which just takes filling in some information like your address, your name, your blah blah blah. Then you search to see if the domain you want is taken and if it isn’t then you register it. Go through the steps, choose your registration length, private or public, and any other options they throw at you. If you’re at GoDaddy you’ll notice that they throw a ton of options at you, just choose quick register and be done with it.
Finally all you have to do is pay for it. You can use a credit card, and some places are even letting you use paypal to easily pay with a paypal account. And now with Google announcing no fee Google Checkout we imagine that a lot of places will try and make the switch to save in the coming year.
You’re done, you now own a unique domain name that you can call your own.
