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Excerpt: Determine Your Goals Set Aside a Budget Choose a Domain Name Get Web Hosting Gather Content Create Website Structure Find a Website Developer 3. Choose and Register a Domain Name What in the world is a domain name? A domain name is simply put, an Internet address. www.askewmedia.net is an example of a domain name. www.google.comis another example. All websites must have one in order to be on the Internet. Coming up with a domain name is simple. And make sure to keep it simple. You don’t want a domain name that is hard for your customers and potential customers to remember. Use your business name. Unfortunately, if you have a common business name, such as Josh’s Auto Repair, or Metro Motors, chances are that the domain name is already taken. So be prepared to come up with some variations of your domain name. Adding a number or a dash will sometimes solve that issue. You can also use .net, .biz, .info instead of .com. Although I would always recommend staying with .com or .net. Once you decide on what you would like your domain name to be, you will need to check and make sure that it is not already taken, and then register it as soon as you can because you never know when someone is going to try to purchase that name. Domain names usually run anywhere from about $10 to $15 per year. Here are a few domain registration companies: www.GoDaddy.com www.Dotster.com www.NetworkSolutions.com Discussed in detail in the next step in this article, you will need a web hosting account. For now, you need to know that many web hosting companies offer free domain name registration with your account. When you use a domain registration website, you have to take your domain and a few other details and give it to your web hosting company so that your domain name points to the correct servers. When you get a domain name registered through a web hosting company, everything is already configured for you. All you need is to choose a domain name and a web hosting package. I know this may sound confusing, but here is the catch with getting a domain name with your web hosting company: you cannot take the domain name with you if you were to decide to cancel your account. If for some reason you are not satisfied with your web hosting company or found a better web hosting company that will suit your business needs, you will not be able to take your domain name with you to the new hosting company. You will either have to wait for up to an entire year for the previous web hosting company to release the domain name, or purchase for a hefty price. There are, however, a few web hosting companies that will allow you to take the domain with you for little (like $15) or not charge. Lets say that you purchase a web hosting account for your business. You have it about 2 months. At this point you have already print business cards with the new website…

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