Domain Name Renewal - Caution

Domain names are unique names or address for websites. These names are all registered to make sure they’re unique. Website owners pay yearly registration costs.

But what if website owners don’t pay the annual fee in time? The situation wouldn’t be all that serious if this were like returning a library book late. You’d just pay some sort of fine and be on your way. It’s not that easy.

There are people who make their living by buying expired domain names and then selling them back to the former owners at a nice profit. They’ll add on a $500 or $1,000 processing fee for selling you YOUR domain name back.

So how do you make sure that your domain name fees are paid? Talk to the company that originally handled your domain name registration. Make sure they have your current contact information. Ask them if they have an “auto renewal” feature. This feature would allow them to automatically charge your credit card and keep your domain name renewal up to date.

Three Quick Guidelines For Picking a Domain Name

1. Do not pick a name with hyphens, underscores or dashes.

People don't know the difference between them. Furthermore, imagine you're in the elevator with someone, trying to tell them your url (aka domain name) and you have to say "double u, double u, double u, dot the, hyphen, coffee, hyphen, guy, dot com" and not getting through. Your prospect is just not understanding if you mean "hyphen (-)" or "underscore (_)" or what the url is supposed to be.

It's just too complicated. Get rid of the hyphens and just get a domain name without dashes, hyphens or underscores.

2. Pick something simple and straightforward.

Preferably, the name of your company, but if it's not available, pick a name related to what you do. More info about this is in the next point.

3. Perform keyword research to pick out a domain name.

What am I talking about?

Keyword research basically means researching what words people are typing into the search engines to find content related to what you are talking about. Keyword research may be completely irrelevant if you are only interested in a personal blog, and don't care about getting readers. If you care about getting some people to read your blog or visit your site, you may want to do some keyword research.

Here's how to perform keyword research in a nutshell:

Go to Google and type in "keyword research tool" in the search bar. Click on the "Google Adwords Keyword Tool" or on the "word tracker" tool. Read the instructions on the website for how to execute the search.

For instance, using the Google tool, if I were to type in the keyword "running" and then search on that word, I get a list of several hundred running related words and phrases that people are typing into the Google search engine when they look up running related web sites.

From here, it can be as simple as going down the list of results and seeing which domain name, that is related to what I'm going to write about is available. You could also find some other words that you hadn't thought about and then research them.

There are a lot more things to consider when picking a domain name, specially when it comes to performing keyword research, but these 3 things should get you going.

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Mistakes to Avoid in Domain Names Registration

Domain names these days are very important to companies who want to establish their presence on the net. Website addresses are not mere addresses but they are already called a domain name and are therefore considered as vital to a company's identification online. For this reason, companies or individuals with web pages are particularly pouring their attention on domain names registration. Before any business to kick off, this particular phase is something that you will go through. To get domain names registration, companies make sure that they get a name that would include their company's name in it or the niche that they are into.

That is how these names are relevant to online businesses nowadays. It must speak the kind of business that you are in to make it more effective and profitable. While for others, they use keywords that are performing well and at the same time are related to the products or services that they sell. The best domain names are those that will best represent your business online. Like for many companies, they use their company names in their domains. This is for easy recall and branding as well. Getting tips on domain names can guide you in picking out the best address online.

Keep in mind that an easy-to-remember name is better in terms of domain names registration. Internet users and prospective customers will easily remember your site. Don't make things too complicated. Always put your feet on the shoes of your target customers and this will help you come up with the appropriate address. Sometimes, web site owners experience the downside of having too long web addresses. Internet users find it difficult to easily recall their addresses, therefore, losing possible transactions. Aside from losing sales because of having a site address that's difficult to remember, you may also lose potential customers if you change your site's address.

This can create confusion among people who are frequent visitors of your web page. Changing and redirecting internet users to your new page might be inconvenient for some internet users. You can't deny there are really lazy individuals who do not have the patience in dealing with the changes. Others may not even understand about the modification and will eventually abandon visiting your site. As much as possible, be definite in choosing for your site's address right from the start. Don't choose in haste so that you can avoid changing address when your online business has already taken off. Think on a long-term basis when you do domain names registration.

Consistency is important in any business. Thus, creating confusion among your customers is a big blunder in any cutthroat business. With the most apt web site address, you can be assured of a profitable domain name. That is why domain names registration is a vital part when you are putting up a web page. It is as essential as choosing a product label or a company name. Do not take it for granted. Domain names registration information must be thoroughly studied before you make final decisions. A well thought-out name that is aligned to the nature of your business can be a great contributing factor to your site's success and to your business as well.

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Register Your Domain With The Right Company

Choosing the right company to entrust your domain name registrations is vital. There are literally hundreds of companies offering domain name registration services, but how do you know how reliable they are? How long have they been in business? Do they offer all the extra services?

Will they hold your domain to ransom when you come to transfer away? Can you be in full control of your domain at all times? Is the company just another reseller of a reseller of a reseller?!

With so many domain name registration businesses out there how can you ensure you choose one of the more reputable ones?
Here are a few pointers that should help steer you in the right direction:

1. Check to see how long the company has been operating
The World Wide Web has been around for about 14 years or so now and so web hosting and domain registration businesses only began life about 11 years ago. Nominet, the registry responsible for .uk domains was 12 years old in May 2008, so most Nominet members have only been members for 12 years or less. However, there are only a few of the bigger players who have been around for all that time. So check to see how long the domain name registration business you are considering has been around for.

2. Make sure you can control every aspect of your domain name
Many domain name registration companies don't let you make changes to your domains yourself. You have to enter a request via their support systems and then wait days for assistance. Simple things like changing IPS Tags and changing Name Servers should be possible via your control panel. Make sure you get a control panel and check out what the control panel lets you do.

3. If you want to transfer your domain away will you be charged a fee?
Many domain name registration and hosting companies charge a release fee. This charge is completely unnecessary. You should never be held to ransom over your domain name. Also, every time you change hosts and transfer your domains, on gTLDs you will have to pay a transfer in fee. This can be avoided if you make sure you use a good domain name registration company in the first place. You'll never need to transfer a domain again!

4. Check to see if you get any email accounts
Most domain name registration services do not include email. If you want email services with your domain name, most companies charge you for email. In most cases you only get email forwarding. Even for straight forward POP3 email accounts some companies only offer 1 or 2 email accounts. You should make sure you get at least 15-20 POP3 email accounts included free of charge with your domain name registration. Most web hosting companies do not offer free POP3 email accounts. The reason for this is they offer domain name registration as an extra service. It's not the main stay of their business.

5. Are they an ICANN accredited domain name registrar?
You should choose a domain name registration company that is ICANN accredited. Firstly, they have had to go through all the ICANN accreditation checks which is quite an in depth process. Secondly, it's not cheap! So you know the company is committed to Domain Name Registration as ICANN accreditation is a big investment and this should give you complete reassurance.

6. Can you use their SMTP servers for out going email?
Many hosting and domain name registration providers will not let you use their SMTP servers for sending emails. They assume you can send email via your ISP's SMTP servers. However, a great many ISP's and broadband providers will only let you use their SMTP servers on their branded email accounts. But if you use your own email address such as dave.smith@davesmith.net you won't be able to send email via their SMTP servers. There are workarounds but you shouldn't have to go to the trouble. Choose the right Domain Name Registration provider who does allow sending mail via their SMTP servers. Also watch out, there are a number of the top hosting companies that will only let you use their SMTP servers on premium email accounts which incur an extra charge.

7. Are they a reseller of a reseller of a hosting company?
It makes no sense registering your domains through a reseller of a reseller! This simply adds extra layers in the ordering process that could go wrong. It is always better to register your domains with a Nominet member for .uk domains and an ICANN accredited domain name registrar for gTLDs. One way of finding out more about your domain name registration or web hosting provider is via Netcraft *See below.

By simply entering the URL into Netcraft you can then see lots of useful information such as the Nameserver Organisation, the Netblock owner(the company that is actually hosting your website) and lots of other information.

This will tell you whether your hosting provider is the actual hosting company or a reseller.

8. Make sure you always retain control of your domain name
There are literally hundreds of businesses hosting their websites with a web host they're not happy with. Poor service, surprise invoices, unreliable uptime and email issues are just some of the common issues customers are facing today. What most of them want to do is vote with their feet and walk out the door and find another web hosting provider. However moving all their domains to another host is perceived to be a complete admin headache, so disgruntled customers continue to put up with second rate services for fear of the hassle involved in moving to a new web hosting provider.

Is there another way? Yes, there is. Businesses should be making use of a domain name registration company to centrally administer all their domains. There are lots of very professional domain name registration companies that have been in business for years and that provide fully functional control panels that give their customers full control over their domain names. Then, all they have to do is change the name server details from their old host to their new host for each domain.

So go through this 8 point checklist and make sure you choose the right home for your domain name registrations and renewals. There are plenty of companies who rely on hosting and domain name registration providers to look after the very life blood of their online businesses. More and more companies are going online and a great many of them rely on their websites for more than 60% of their revenue. So it makes sense to ensure that your domain name is in the hands of a reliable, reputable and professional company. Check to see how long they've been in business, make sure you can control every aspect of your domain, check to see if there are any hidden charges if you want to transfer a domain, check to see if you get any free email accounts and how many, check to see if the company is an ICANN accredited domain name registrar and a member of Nominet, check to make sure you can use their SMTP servers for sending email, check via Netcraft to see if they are a reseller or the actual hosting company and always, always make sure you retain control of your domain names.

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