Setting up your website - Domain name

Hi Readers,

To get started with digital marketing, the first thing you need is a well set-up website. Its difficult to ensure a smooth flow to things if there are errors in the way your website is set up. You can choose from a variety of options available to potential website owners today. If you decide to start with a free website, there are loads of options available. Some of them are as follows.

• Google's Blogger platform (The one i am using for this blog)
• Wordpress free website builder
• Google Sites, Google's own website builder tool.
• Weebly: This is a frequently used tool for new website owners. It provides better quality templates & more editable options
• Wix: This platform is getting popular these days due to easy setup & smooth user interface (drag & drop functionality). Its definitely worth a try.

However if you are in this for long & if you have some serious plans about your blog, business or any other type of website, you need to get the below in place.

1. Website domain (Unique name for your website) for eg: www.yourwebsitename.com Watch the video below to see how to register a domain.

Since the process to register a domain is standard across all domain name providers, the above video should act as a decent starting point. There are other players as well where you can compare the prices before purchasing a domain.

You can glance through and compare domain prices on the below list of websites

1. Godaddy India
2. Bigrock
3. Onlydomains
4. Hostgator
5. Google Domains

Once you purchase your domain. You will receive access to the domain dashboard which typically looks something like this...

Once you have your own dashboard, you will have options like...

• Domain Settings: This is where you see stuff like, when your domain is set to expire, the domain is registered at what address, is the address Private or Public. If you set it as Public, people who are "Looking up" for your domain name using websites like Whois.com would be able to see your domain related information. You can purchase domain registration separately depending on your preferences.
• Manage DNS: This is the place where you will find a unique IP for your domain name. DNS stads for Domain Name Server, which means you can add / edit FTP (File Transfer Protocol), Hosting services & many more services like security certificates, verification updates etc. In the initial stages, all you need to use is the CNAME servers to link your hosting plan with your domain.

In our next post, we will go through the process of Hosting for websites, its various types & how to go about setting it up for your website. I hope you found this post useful. If you have any queries make sure you fill the form on this website along with your message. Leave your comments below to express your opinions.

Happy Learning,

Mitul Shingadia