How to Obtain Your Own Business Website Address

By James Wright

A company website attracts more business
i John Foxx/Stockbyte/Getty Images

With the Internet as popular as it is, businesses of all kinds now use websites to help promote their material and add an additional place for their marketing campaigns. The URLs (website addresses) are usually set up to match the name of the company, such as "www.companyname.com." Obtaining a domain name (the "companyname.com" part of the website address) for your own website is not difficult and is a largely automatic process.

Step 1

Decide what name you would like for your website. It is good to have your domain name match your business name so it is easy to find. However, instead of just a plain domain, you can opt for something like "company-name.com" or choose to use a .net instead of a .com. However, note that more often than not, simplicity is best.

Step 2

Check to see if the name you wish is taken. Many companies that sell domains will have a tool to check for you, but if you haven't decided on which company to use, you can check simply by typing the name into the address bar of your web browser (such as Internet Explorer or Firefox) or going to a search engine and looking it up. Just type in the web address exactly as you would want it to show. Note that these methods may not be completely reliable, but are usually good ways to check.

Step 3

Purchase your domain name. To do this, you will need to buy your domain through a registrar. There are many domain registrars out there, such as godaddy.com, doteasy.com or 1and1.com. Each company may have different steps, pricing and support, so check each website's terms of service and pricing before you choose to buy. When purchasing your domain, you will be given many options concerning security, length of billing (usually in one year increments), and other variables you may need to consider.

Step 4

Purchase web hosting or combine your domain name with a pre-existing hosting account. In order to use your domain name, you will need to buy web hosting. Hosting is where you will keep your website files, and is necessary for a website to exist. Some domain registrar companies will also provide web hosting, or you can opt to choose another company. Look for a variety of web hosting companies and compare their prices, terms of service and options, and then read reviews for those hosts in order to choose the best one.

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