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4. The registrar will tell you the cost of registering the various extensions.
5. You then choose the domain name/s you want to register
6. Next step is the payment for the domain name
7. And finally the domain name is then added to your account.
At this stage the ownership rights of the domain name is transferred to you.
When you open an account with the registrar, you be requested to provide the following information:
- Registrant
- Administrative Contact
- Technical Contact
- Billing Contact
Registrant
Name of the individual/or company making the domain name registration.
Administrative Contact
Who to contact in case of any administrative issues for example, potential sale enquires or account updates.
Technical Contact
Who to contact in case of any technical issues for example, name servers not working or registrar down due to maintenance.
Billing Contact
Who to contact in case of any billing issues for example, payments made or when domain names are due for renewal.
Commonly the administrative, technical and billing contact details will be the same. What is important to bear in mind is that the information provided must be correct. Incorrect information may cause various problems; specifically the registrar may not be able to communicate with you.
The registrar will provide you with your DNS server settings also know as Nameserver settings.
DNS Server Settings
DNS Server Settings are initially set to default, which are the registrars own server settings. These can be changed to point to specific host sites this practise is largely common in the domain name parking business model.
Additional services that may be offered by a domain name registrar
Private Whois listing
If you are concerned about protecting your privacy, and you do not want your contact address and email address to visible to the general public, you can opt for private Whois listing. This enable the registrars to put they own details for the administrative, technical and billing contact. Therefore, when someone wants to communicate with you they go through the registrar who then forwards the message to you.
Of course before you even think about registering any domain name you need to do some research. In our experience keyword tools should be the starting point of your research.
Email services
Email services allows you to set up custom email addresses using your domain name.
Web hosting
Web hosting services means the registrar will provide space on their internet servers for you to store your website, so that the general public can access it. We have complied a review of the 10 best hosting companies.
Site Builders
Site building software allows you to build a website using pre installed website templates. You do not need any technical knowledge so it a suitable options for web design newbies. However a word of warning site building software tends to be limiting, it might be better to invest in self install website design software.
Reseller accounts
Reseller accounts are essentially a franchise, with the major difference being that you can rebrand as your own business. The registrar provides you with everything you need to build your own reseller business - this may include a web site, shopping cart and credit card processing applications.
Google Apps
Registrar will typically throw in a freebie with your domain name purchase, namely Google AdWords. Google AdWords allows you to create your own advert, choosing keywords that are relevant to your website. This then helps Google to match your advert to internet users. Google AdWords is a pay per click (PPC) system, which obviously means you pay only when someone clicks on your adverts. You can learn more about Google AdWords from the horse’s own mouth.
This leads on nicely to our article on Using keyword tools for researching domain name registration.
You can use our domain name checker to find out whether your desired domain name is available to register.
How do you register a domain name?
Admittedly the actually process of registering a domain name is simple and straightforward. And the great thing about the process is that it is universal to all registrars. So that makes it a intuitive process applicable to all registrars.
The basic steps are as follows:
1. Open an account with the registrar
2. Type in the domain name you want to register in the domain name search tool.
3. The registrar gives you results on the availability of the domain name you searched for. This will also include the availability of the name on various domain name extensions, e.g., .com, .net. .org. .biz, .info, .tv and .mobi