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How to Buy a Domain and Hosting for Your First Website

Kane

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Let’s say you have decided to launch your first website, how do you begin. Well, you’ll need two things: a domain name and a web hosting. But with so many options for domains and web hosting, how do you know what to choose?

Let’s begin with how to get a domain name and then move towards setting up web hosting.

What Kind of Domain Should You Get?

In 1985, Internet Engineering Task Force released 6 Top Level Domains .com, .org, .net, .int, .edu, and .gov. Currently, there are almost 1600 TLDs, however, the most popular domain extension is .com. Since it is most used domain, it is very likely that you would like to go with .com. However, it is so widely used, that finding your desired name for a domain with a .com extension can be very difficult. These days it is quite impossible to get one and two word domain with .com. Let’s say you want to register healthy diet dot com, it is very possible it might already be taken. You might try tweaking the name but you will either end up making it very long or like health diet for you dot com, or looking for another option.

Some domains are reserved for certain things and you cannot have them for instance dov is for government and edu is for educational institutions. But there are a lot of options to consider, for instance, you might go with .net, which was the original domain released in 1985, or other options like .co, .info, .org, .co., .info, etc.

If you look for less popular options, it is easier to get a desired name for domain. Since the extension does not matter for Search Engine Ranking, you can choose any extension you want but just remember the name you choose (Second Level Domain) affects SEO, so try to find keyword rich name.

When you are buying domain names, you need to be careful on certain things. You can use any TLD (domain extension) but your SLD (the name you choose for your domain) should be keyword rich.

If you are buying expired domains (domains that were registered by someone but were not renewed) make sure you verify their history. That’s because some expired domains might be blacklisted for spam, scams, or illegal content.

How to Choose the Right Hosting for Beginners?

A domain is nothing unless it is hosted. Therefore, you also need a hosting to launch your website. Buying hosting for the first time might overwhelm you because there are different kinds of hosting options available, and differed web hosting companies to choose.

How do you choose what kind of hosting package is appropriate for you? For beginners, shared hosting is the best. That’s because it is most affordable. Some people like to go with managed hosting, which is relatively expensive, but I believe in learning by doing so I suggest unmanaged shared hosting. Consider upgrading your shared to VPS or Dedicated Server when your website grows very big.

With so many hosting companies, how do you choose the best one? Well, you need to look for a hosting provider that offers:

Free domain name (when you pay for yearly hosting, some web host gives you free domain)

Free SSL certificate

Easy website builder (for instance, WordPress installer)

24/7 customer support

To be safe, check reviews before buying hosting for the first time. Sometimes going with popular options like Hostinger, Bluehost, SiteGround, Namecheap, etc. also simplifies things.