Tips On How To Register A Domain
Picking a domain name is one of the most fun, and sometimes stressful parts of planning your online business. It is also one of the most important steps in branding yourself and your products. Your domain name is the web address or URL that your visitors will type in the address bar. Your business name on the other hand won’t come into play as much because you are going to be recognized by your brand, name, or website. Decide before you register any domain name what image or brand you wish to project in your online business.
If you are having trouble deciding on a brand, just use your name for the domain. For example, www.JohnDoe.com. You should register this domain anyway.
Dot Com Should Be Your Domain Of Choice
I registered my name with a dot com, dot net and dot name. I also registered the same extensions with hyphens, for example www.John-Doe.com. I did it this way because I don’t want anyone taking advantage of me when it becomes a total success 
Try selecting a domain name that’s memorable. Trying to find a name that is easy to remember and that has one or two words that are easy to spell may be quite difficult. Many of those domains have already been taken. You will have to be creative to come up with the one or two name domains. After you find one that you think you will be happy with, ask your friends or business associates if it sounds sticky BEFORE registering it.
A great tip to keep in mind is that when people think of sites they always type in a dot com. So select your domain with dot com extension. You can also register the other extensions (dot net, dot biz, etc) so that you won’t be taken advantage of later.
Private Registration
During the registration process, you are asked about private registration for an extra fee. This service protects your identity from the prying eyes of others. It can be quite expensive to add this on because the fee is about $9.00 per domain. If you are registering 5 domains that would be an extra $45 dollars. That option is up to you, but if you have a business address then you can just use that instead of your home address.
I would also suggest you register the hyphen version of your domain. For example, register www.DomainName.com and www.Domain-Name.com. For an extra $7 – $10 a year for registration, I recommend this method because the first time you create a winning product, experienced marketers will quickly jump on a closely related open domain. This would mean easy sales for them if a customer accidentally types in the wrong domain.
Where you land in the yellow pages…
Both online and brick and mortar business names are listed in alphabetical order. Many directories and links pages place websites in alphabetical order just as the phone books list businesses. Don’t try to cheat your way to the top by putting an A in the name. If your domain name is widget.com, you won’t get to the top by saying your business name is “A Widget”. The search engines are too sophisticated for that trick.
Registering a domain is like buying a piece of real estate on the internet. You get your own address and no one can take the land from you as long as you pay yearly for it. After you buy the real estate, you need to build a house on it, which is your hosting account…more on that tomorrow.
These Thieves Sneak In Right Under Your Nose!
Who are these people? Well, they are called focus stealers, and it is an activity, a person, or a thing that takes your focus away from building your business, and frequently in a subtle way. Yes, sometimes your focus can be stolen from right under your nose.
You say stolen right under my nose?
Absolutely and it happens every second of the day. Have you ever been in the middle of a task concentrating intensely, and then the telephone rang? You see a familiar number on the caller id so you pick up the phone. You have the best intentions of only talking for 3 minutes but it turns into 30 minutes.
You finally hang up the phone to get back to your work at hand. But now you have to figure out exactly where you left off. And then you have to build the momentum back up to your level of concentration prior to the phone call. By the time you reach that same point again, it has been another 15 minutes. You have lost 45 minutes on account of a phone call. Situations like this is what I call focus stealers.
You Can’t Turn Back The Hands Of Time
This may not seem like a lot of time to some people, but remember: time is something you can never get back. So if you are like me and still working full time, those 45 minutes can make the difference between what you accomplish today and what you accomplish tomorrow. I prefer accomplishing today rather than tomorrow.
Focus stealers make you spend a considerable amount of time on things that will not bring you a return.
Focusing and achieving your goals are only possible when they are written down. Just ask ANY successful person; and they will confirm this, because they practice this simple procedure with amazing results. Write down your goals, and make sure you read them every day to keep yourself constantly aware of your target.
Successful people practice the art of focus. Without focus, you can’t hit your goal unless it’s by accident. That means that you are swinging and batting at thin air hoping that lady luck beams her light on you. Following something that you dearly want to accomplish without focusing is just leaving your success open to chance.
