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How to Buy & Protect A Domain Name 2019 Webinar

The first step to every website is selecting a great domain name. Here’s how to get it.

In this webinar you will learn:
1. What is a domain?
2. How to choose a domain name
3. How to purchase a domain name on HostGator.com
4. Next steps after purchasing your domain name
5. How to manage and protect the domain
6. How to sell the Domain

Other Resources:
How to Check Domain Name Availability: http://gtr.bz/rAB630pUTeI
How to Buy a Website Domain: http://gtr.bz/A31j30pUTdB
Ongoing Domain Management: http://gtr.bz/3mrC30pUTll
How to Sell a Domain Name: http://gtr.bz/thfH30pUTeX

so welcome to today’s webinar we’re talking about all things domains if you’re thinking about starting a website but maybe don’t know where to start the first step is to get the perfect domain name we’re going to walk through the process of how to decide on a great domain name and the steps to protect it we’re talking about domains because it’s a hot topic on our blog in fact five of the top ten landing pages on the Hostgator blog are
related to domains from articles such as how to find out who owns a domain name how to buy or sell a domain name next steps after buying a domain name the list goes on and we’re going to cover it today okay so first off let me introduce myself the voice that you’ve been listening to for a few minutes already I’m Blair Williamson the content marketing manager for Hostgator also online is Janet Thibodeau our social media manager for Hostgator she’s
going to be following your questions in the chat window as well as any questions that you send on Twitter using the hashtag perfect domain if you already follow us on social media then you may have seen a preview video that she did about how to find out who owns a domain so Jana is going to be presenting that section today thanks for joining me Jana hi Blair happy to be here looking forward to help out with the webinar today great alright let’s
get started first off we’re going to talk about what is a domain like we said many of you already have domains so you’re familiar but we’re gonna cover some details that you might not be as familiar with so a domain is another term for domain is web address and it’s simply that it’s your address online it’s the dot-com or the dot org that people will find to type in to find your website or your business online but if we want to break it down
further there are a few terms you may hear when you’re talking about domains you might think about domains as simply something like this WW hostgator.com or a domain can look like this this is the web address for our support website support dot hostgator.com and support is actually a sub domain of Hostgator com you can make of it like this the sub domain is related to the main domain or it’s registered as part of the domain but it still keeps its
own website files and its own search results it’s sort of like if you had a garage apartment that’s attached to your house it probably gets taxed by the city as the same property but the garage apartment has its own address where it receives mail then we also have a TLD or top-level domain that refers to the part that comes after the dot in your website the most common TLD is our com org.net and dot Co you’re probably best off choosing com if
it’s available or if you’re a non-profit then org might be more appropriate you can also get a ccTLD or a country code TLD if your website is going to be country specific so for instance maybe your business is only available in Mexico then you can have the dot MX TLD or dot CA for a business in Canada TL DS will vary by cost based on how popular the TLD is so for instance the most popular and desirable TLD such as common org will be more
expensive than something like dot US or dot info but Christ shouldn’t be the main deciding factor for the domain that you choose your domain has a lot to do with brand recognition and brand visibility online so let’s talk about how to choose wisely the first step in deciding on your domain is to start with a great idea a great business or website idea you likely have an idea in mind so let’s walk through how to turn this into a domain let’s
pretend that you don’t know what to call your business or your website yet this is a great spot to be in because you’ll be able to best utilize these tips first of all remember that your domain name is part of your brand and who you are so we could say that your brand equals your domain where your domain equals your brand let’s say you’re starting a business website or website for your new blog you’ll want the web address to match the name of the
business after all it would be strange if your favorite coffee shop is called Pam’s coffee house but in order to get to their website you’ve had to search for Pam’s mug of joe you’re used to seeing the sign on the building every day and anybody who drives by is gonna drive by and search for Pam’s coffee house but not Pam’s mug of joe and that’s super confusing for Google to try to decipher that Pam’s coffee house and Pam’s mug of joe are the same
thing your name reflects who you are so think about the ideas values and perceptions that you want associated with your business name and consider that as you come up with domain name options it might seem overwhelming but don’t worry about making a mistake or a decision that you can’t change later we’ll cover all of that so now let’s talk about best practices for how to choose a domain when it comes to choosing a domain name there are some best
practices that you should follow first off you need to decide what needs to be in your business name so let’s start off with what should be an easy question start off by answering what does your business do what does your business offer write down specific answers to these questions and you’ll start to see a list of keywords form that you might want to include in your domain name is your business local only if so then you might want to include
the city where you’re located or you might want to grab a domain for each city where you have an office are there other similar businesses nearby you want your business name to be unique from your competitors but if you found consumed businesses or competitors nearby look and see do they use certain keywords in their domain name or other elements that you should consider when you’re choosing your domain consider a domain name that is broad enough
to grow with your business maybe your business is gonna expand or maybe one day you’ll sell it for example maybe instead of Pam’s coffee house you might want to be Pam’s coffee if you plan to roast your own coffee beans one day the next step is keep it short so your domain name should be fairly short so that it’s easy to remember a longer domain name can be subject to potential for typos which can be really frustrating for someone who’s trying to
find your website another way to think about this is think about how your web address will fit on a business card you don’t want the web address to take up two lines because that would look unorganized and potentially confusing so here’s an example Wally’s window washing company com okay it’s a mouthful right simply just saying it out loud it’s a lot to say the domain is actually quite long as well some of these words aren’t necessary and they
could stump someone when they’re trying to remember what exactly was in the URL somebody might wonder was it Willy’s Wally’s window washing or Wally’s window washing company or Willy’s window I don’t know it’s but it could simply be shortened by just removing the word company and that might make it a little bit shorter and easier the next tip is make sure your domain is easy to read and say out loud so think about it like this when you’re having
conversation with someone and they ask where to find you online you want your website to be easy to say easy to pretend pronounced and easy for someone to assume the correct spelling so the reverse of this is also true you want to make sure that you pay attention to how your website looks when it’s written in print for example teachers talking this could be a non-profit with great intention but that ST and the middle gets kind of confusing makes
you have to pause and then see ate your words and then when it’s written down it’s actually worse because it kind of looks like the word is stalking not talking probably not the connotation that they want with that organization the next example speed of art calm so is it speed of art or is it speed Oh fart I’m not really sure either way this is an example we’re saying the name out loud and looking at the written version can be really important
another thing you might want to avoid is hyphens so for instance Disney – clothing okay so when you say that out loud to someone they might wonder like do I spell out the word – or is it like a – – you know it just makes it a little bit less confusing if you can think about making sure that your domain name is easy to say out loud and easy to read in print next thing you’re going to want to think about is which TLD do you want do you want com or
are you willing to consider other TLDs think about what TLDs are important in your important and popular in your industry are there certain connotations that go along with a TLD that you want to avoid finally what other variations do you want or would you be willing to consider grab different variations of your domain names such as like the plural version of your name shortened versions or even an acronym you don’t want someone else to come along
and try to mimic your business or your business name so create you don’t want them to come along and create a website that looks like yours or is similar to your domain name so grab the versions that will best help protect your brand name okay so we’ve gone over best practices for how to choose domain name the next thing you if you’re still not completely sure about what to do you can try a domain name generator so if you’re still stuck review
best practices again or think about a domain name generator a domain name generator is a software where you can input your keywords the city category or industry and other pertinent information about your business and it will give you ideas for website domain I will say that the options aren’t very creative as far as coming up with a catchy business name but it usually gives you a pretty basic verbatim answer based on what you put in but it’s
still a good option to consider a domain name generator if you’re totally stocked might at least give you ideas of things you don’t want to try so we’re gonna drop a link in the chat window for an article on our blog that has a list of top domain name generator tools that you can try so look for that in the chat window if you’re still debating between a few options for your domain name that’s okay I suggest that you purchase them all and no this
isn’t just a ploy to try to get you to buy more domains me personally when I’m making a decision I like to sit with it for a while and really think through the options but in this case I don’t want someone else to come up with my top ideas while I’m trying to make a decision so I would suggest that you buy the domain names that you’re seriously considering or the ones that you might want to develop one day okay but then what so now you’re sitting
there with like three different domain names well really you don’t have to do anything first option is simply just do nothing let it sit there once you’ve decided on your final choice you can let the other ones lapse you don’t have to renew them next year your next option would be to redirect them to your final choice so take all your other domain name options do a 301 redirect sending them all to your final domain name choice or you can list
them for sale we’re gonna talk about how to list domains for sale later in the webinar but now it’s time to go shopping so Jana will you take over I should whip out a shop for a domain name absolutely cool let me give you presenter access okay so it looks like my screen is sharing so thanks Blair that information so far and if you guys when you do do the research and decide on a perfect domain name you are gonna want to register it and I’ll echo
what Blair said you don’t want to wait too long because someone else might have a similar name as you they might be inspired to start a similar type business and when you go look for it it might not be available so go ahead and grab those as soon as you can so that somebody else doesn’t get them there’s lots of places where you can go and purchase a domain name or on hostgator.com and we’ve got a domain button right here so let’s look for this
example I’ve got snappy sup my snappy site comm and you do want to put the TLD in there because there might be some that are available in some that aren’t so do put in your top choice and we’re gonna see if that’s available okay yes congratulations your domain is available so that’s perfect I’ve got my first choice I’ve got the dot-com that I wanted I can go ahead and purchase that I also might want to consider some of these other variations
maybe I’ll have a store Sunday so I want to purchase the one that says shortstop dot shop different options and like like I said if your budget permits it go ahead and buy those you don’t want someone else to come along in the future if your website is a tremendous success they might register these other names and impersonate you or you know steal some of that great brand equity that you’ve been able to build with your successful website so of
course it’s pretty easy and painless to purchase a domain if it’s available but that might not be the case so if you go for example here’s a variation I decide I want to go with snappy shop comm and the results tell me it’s not snappy shop calm is not available I can go ahead and decide to purchase one of these other variations if they’re gonna work for me down at the bottom it’s got you know some other variations this is kind of like those web
suggestion those domain generator tools maybe one of these are going to work for me or I can use one of those other external tools to help come up with a name since this one is already taken but if I’ve got my heart set on that one you know there are ways you might be able to figure out to purchase that domain buying and selling domains is a very common practice and you might get lucky that someone who has this hasn’t actually built a site or has
a site that they’re willing to give up so how do you find out who owns that there’s actually a website for that as well there’s the ICANN Whois database directory and they collect information on every domain that’s registered they actually have the domain name and the TLD s and then they display they collect the registrar information your name business phone number email so all that information will be available so if you find it you might be
able to contact them and work out to purchase the domain I would suggest also looking to see if the if the website is active is that if it’s active it’s probably not going to be that likely but it might be a website and it’s not active and if there is a contact information you might find this information on the website as well and it is not uncommon that someone kind of like we talked about will purchase that several domain names and not build a
site that so they might be happily you know happily they might be heavily surprised if someone wants to actually purchase a domain name from them there also could be an instance where you go to the ICANN database and the information is not available this is actually becoming more common people are opting in for domain privacy and we’re going to talk about that in the webinar very soon but domain privacy will mask your information there’s also
situations with the GDP our countries where this information is just not made available online on any public website that doesn’t have to be the end of the line there our domain name brokers and domain name more places where you can go in and try to find them if you reach out to a broker they have access to different databases that they can find out who owns the domain name and possibly reach out to them and negotiate a price and get that whole
purchase work for you so hopefully you won’t run into the situation that your domain name isn’t available so if you do and you’re able to purchase it that’s awesome congratulations but that’s just the first step there are additional considerations to managing the domain going forward and I’m gonna hand it back over to Blair to go into some of those awesome thanks Jana okay so now that you know how to purchase a domain or find out who owns one
let’s talk about the next steps after buying your domain first of all we recommend that you grab your name everywhere online so like we talked about earlier your domain name is equivalent to your brand in lots of ways so we want to make sure that you can grab your brand everywhere online some first steps for you to think about would be to grab your name on social media so Facebook Instagram any other accounts that you think might be appropriate
for your business and then you’re gonna want to grab your name on Google my business as well Google my business allows you to create like a directory listing for your business and you can pull it your web address there your physical address phone number etc this is gonna be the thing that links a lot of your business information to your website you’ll definitely want to put your information there on Google my business maybe also places like Yelp
so think about every place that you want to grab your name now that you’ve come up with this great brand name right next thing you want to do is consider purchasing similar domain variations so we talked about this earlier you don’t want somebody to mimic your business or create a similar domain name so think about variations that somebody might try to buy to mimic you so even if it’s just the plural version of your website or if you want to buy
some different TLDs as well next you can buy your website hosting or sync your domain and your hosting so what we mean here is you can have your hosting your website hosting and your domain with the same company it doesn’t have to be but it will make your account management a little bit easier in the long run and we’ll talk about this in a minute next thing we recommend is that you think about buying domain privacy so domain privacy is the thing
that’s going to protect your contact information from the public jana showed you that on the Whois directory so domain privacy you can purchase it when you buy your domain or you can add it to your account at any time and we’ll go into more detail about this later next think about setting up a branded email address so this would be like jana at snappy shop comm most web hosting providers will include branded email for free with your account and
with your website but just make sure what types of platforms your hosting provider offers and you can usually set that up in your account dashboard the next thing we recommend is that you set up a list of goals and next steps for your website so that you can get ready to launch of course I would love to cover this topic today but it’s really an entire webinar on its own so instead we’re gonna drop a link in the comment section to an article on
our blog that will walk you through how to make goals and next steps for launching your website so be sure to look for that in the chat window next up is domain name management domain name management sounds more complex than it truly is but it’s something that you need to do every year the most critical part of domain name management is renewing your domain think of your domain as renting space online each year or ever term that you decided on
when you purchase your domain name is up for renewal and at the end of your lease contract you must decide if you want to renew the lease or not so what are the risks of not renewing well first of all when you don’t renew your domain name your website goes down so anyone who comes to your website to find out information about your business they won’t be able to because your website will be blank and they’ll get a big error message obviously
that’s not something you want to happen if you have customers coming and looking for your business online you could lose your domain name so a lot of times if you don’t renew on your renewal date there might be a grace period there but if you past that time you could completely lose your domain name somebody else might buy it in the process and it’s gonna cost you a lot of money to get it back you could lose domain Authority so this means if your
website’s already ranking in Google for certain search terms and your website goes down for extended period of time when Google comes back and tries to scan your website again and they don’t find it you’re gonna lose all that work you had put together on ranking for Google search obviously not something you want because that’s gonna be detrimental to your business finally someone could charge you a lot of money to get it back like we said if you
lose your domain name and somebody else buys it the process and then you want to come back and get it it’s gonna cost you and it’s a challenge you don’t want to have to face so don’t forget to renew your domain here’s some ways that you can make it easy first of all keep all your renewals in one place so we talked about this earlier your domain name and your website hosting doesn’t need to be with the same company but if you keep them with the
same company it will make your renewals much easier you’ll get one email reminder from one company you won’t have to remember which company has the domain versus where you normally log into your website it’s just gonna make it a lot more simple so that you can update all of your renewals at once second you can select Auto renewal when you purchase so when you purchase a domain you can look for the option to automatically renew the domain
typically with hostgator this is already set in processed so that you don’t forget to register to renew it but this isn’t like the most simple way to make sure that you don’t lose your domain make sure that you have Auto renewal setup and finally if you’re more of like a do-it-yourself type person create a reminder on your calendar so whether you do it digitally or on a printed planner make yourself a reminder about a week before your renewal is
due so that you can go in log in do your renewal and not lose your domain your providers should send you an email reminder but if you want to put a reminder on your own calendar as backup that’s always a great idea okay another important piece of domain name management is to protect your personal information from the public so you’ve seen us talk about this a couple times already Jana showed you this on the Whois database that the Whois database
it’s a publicly accessible database that lists the name address email address and telephone number of anyone who registers a domain so when you buy a domain name your contact information will automatically be listed in the Whois directory as a result a lot of people have reported getting unwanted spam email or phone calls after buying a domain but the solution is domain privacy we’ve mentioned it a couple times so let’s talk in detail what it
means domain privacy is like a protection certificate that you add to your website account instead of listing your personal information in the Whois directory contact information for the hosting provider will be listed instead so that’s us Hostgator basically we are vouching for you since we know who owns the domain Whois can contact us instead effectively our information is used to mask your information from public view you can add domain
privacy to your account when you purchase the domain or you can add it at any time through your dashboard so now we’ve covered best practices for how to choose a domain name how to buy and protect your domain name and then if you were one of the people who purchased several domain names during the decision-making process let’s talk about how you’re going to sell a domain Gina would you walk us through that process yep happy to take that on okay
there’s my slide so yeah if you did find yourself with extra domains that you decide you don’t need don’t use you went a different direction or pick the one you finally want to use if you do want to sell them there’s a couple of things you can do first of all is to you could do nothing and you can let them lapse and just let them become available for somebody else to register when they come due if you do decide you might want to recoup some of
that investment you can decide to sell them and there’s a passive way to sell them and then a more time intensive active way to sell them the passive way is just to remove the domain privacy and this will make your information available on that Whois database so that’s a great option if it’s not urgent for you to sell maybe you would be happily surprised if somebody contacts you to want to purchase them you might consider if you do remove the
domain privacy that you use a unique email so that if if those family counts do start to hit you it’s going to go to you know a secondary email instead of hitting your primary email and blocking that up if you do want to sell it and you want to list it yourself you can do that on you know eBay after Nick flipper there’s some examples but before you list it you’re gonna want to figure out how much it’s worth so go through these steps to figure out
if your domain is going to be worth anything to somebody else and it’s pretty much a checklist that follows along the best practices if it’s a dome if it’s a.com TLD it’s going to be more valuable than something else whether it be you know a dotnet org or a country specific domain ending if it’s short does it have a lot of words again does it look good does it sound good is it common term something like a Willy’s Wally’s window-washing company
might not be great because it’s very specific but if it’s a generic term you know best window-washing maybe that maybe somebody will want to purchase that so kind of do your research and figure out if it’s something somebody’s going to want does it fit all of those best practices and that’s going to make it more valuable so if you think you do have a dumain domain that’s worth something and you want to make it available you can list it yourself
that’s a little time-consuming because you have to do the work before and after to get it on the site you have to figure out the information you want to put with your listing I’m going to talk about that in a minute another way to be active about it but maybe a little hands-off for yourself is to list it with the broker there cito is a broker that buys and sells domains so if you’re looking to buy one they may be a broker you approach to purchase
a domain if you do want to sell it yourself and you figured out you think you know what it’s worth you do have to come up with a listing and this is much like selling anything else after market whether it be on an eBay a Craigslist if you’re selling a house or a car you have to kind of come up with a list of features what makes it valuable why would somebody want it for example does it have any existing traffic did you ever build a site on it
where you built up some equity with Google or otherwise highlighting these things and the potential value of the domain is going to help justify maybe a higher price and make it more attractive to buyers so beyond the listing if you’re doing this yourself you have to figure out how is the money going to change hands if I sell my domain how am I going to get that money is it gonna be safe and secure is it online is it a great bank transfer so just
make sure you have those decisions made upfront if you are going through a marketplace or a broker they’re probably going to have a secure process already in place to do the transfer of funds but that’s just the first thing transferring the funds make sure that you get that you get your money and they get the domain but you actually have to transfer the domain so that the new owner can take it and actually build the site and put it on that URL so
I think that now I’m gonna pass it back over to Blair and she’s gonna talk about how to transfer the domain if you do buy it from a third party or sell your domain to a third party cool thanks Jana so if you are needing to transfer a domain we talked about this earlier in the webinar how domain name management can a lot easier if your domain and your website are hosted with the same company as we said before technically they don’t have to be your
website can be hosted in one place and your name server can be with another company however the entire process will be easier if they’re all together with one company because you’ll get your renewal notices from one place so the process to transfer a domain name it will vary by hosting provider but if you’re interested in transferring your domain to Hostgator there’s a link on the screen where you can do that and then also we’re gonna drop a link
in the chat window with the detailed steps that you’re going to need to take but usually you’re gonna initiate this process with the company that you want to move the website to so look for that link in the chat window okay so we’ve covered a lot I want to go over the high points again so that you don’t forget some of these important points regarding a domain remember that your domain name reflects your brand so we want you to choose wisely
remember some of the top tips such as keep it short make sure that it’s easy to say out loud and then it also reads well in print what keywords do you want to include in your domain and how are you going to differentiate yourself from competitors second remember to grab your name everywhere online so get your brand name on social media on Google my business Yelp any other accounts that’s appropriate for your business to have then you can sync
your domain and hosting again they don’t have to be with the same company but this really will make it easier for you in the long run you can buy domain privacy remember that’s the certificate that’s going to protect your contact information from the public and hide it from that Whois database you can purchase domain privacy when you purchase your domain or you can add it at any point to your account and don’t forget renew your domain each term
you