Developing An Internet Presence Part 1

Developing An Internet Presence Part 1
Developing An Internet Presence Part 2
Developing An Internet Presence Part 3
Developing An Internet Presence Part 4
Developing An Internet Presence Part 5
Developing An Internet Presence Part 6
Developing An Internet Presence Part 7

This is quite a learning curve for many DJs and we certainly made mistakes in the early days. There are loads of pitfalls and considerations to take into account buying the Domain Name, and that is even before you have attempted to develop a website.

Domain Names, What’s That?

A Domain Name is the bit that sits between the http://www. and the extension, which can be one of many, such as a .co.uk or .com. which ultimately gives you http://wwww.yourdomainname.co.uk or your chosen extension.

There are many extensions and deciding which one to have is reasonably easy if you concentrate your business in the UK.

If you are UK based then the following would probably be the best options:

.co.uk
.org.uk
.org
.com

The first two on the list are relatively cheap, currently under £7.00 GBP for two years and will tend to propagate quicker within the UK. The other two are considered to be international extensions and will ultimately allow you to develop a broader Internet presence but will equally work in the UK, but it comes with a price tag.

We have already told you what the first two on the list cost over a two year period, the other two will currently come in at just under £9.00 a year. These are not huge amounts of money but if you run multiple websites it soon mounts up.

Common Mistakes Made When Buying A Domain Name

There are plenty of places to purchase your domain name, 123 Reg, and Fasthost offer a great free service and the secret is to use them to buy and control your domain name. The DJ industry is very a tough cookie to crack and if you are new on the scene then acquiring a relevant domain name is going to be hard.

We receive enquires from DJs asking about domain names and one of the most fundamental mistakes DJs make is wanting to purchase the name of their show. This is fine if you want to protect your brand but hard work if you want it to work well with the search engines within a short period of time. So immediately you need to buy two domain names, your brand name and a regional market focused one. Consider what you would type into a search engine to find a disco in your area and that gives you a great starting point when sourcing your Domain Name.

Unfortunately if this is all new to you then the likelihood is that established DJs will have taken the Domain Name you are looking for but there are ways around this and we will cover this in another FYI. The most important thing when purchasing your domain name is not to use the webhosting with that company as ownership of the name is the priority, consider this.

The two companies we have mentioned for purchasing domain names also offer accounts as a free service just to purchase domain names. Owning the domain name without using their hosting will cost you an affordable amount if you fall on hard times but don’t get sucked in to using their hosting when you purchase the domain.

The Domain Name and hosting are two separate entities and is an issue that is often confused by Internet novices. You liken this to the postal service, the Domain Name is the post box, which you own and control, and the webhosting is where you choose to send it.

I Now Own My Domain Name – Where Does It Go?

Domain names have the equivalent of Post Codes but these are called “nameservers”. Once you have purchased your domain, or multiple domains, if you go to your Domain Control Panel you should be able to select your Domain name and it will give you a few options, one of which is to select “nameservers”.

Inherently these will be pointed at the company that initially sold you the domain name but you will have the option to change this and allocate new ones.

This Is Over My Head Now!!

No it isn’t, all we have done so far is purchased the domain name which now needs some space to create a website, and we will cover this in another release.

Watch out for the next installment.