Tips For Choosing A Registrar
Determine which services you require
You may want services like email hosting or support offered in French, so find out what each registrar offers. Remember, if you registered your .CA domain name as an individual you have free WHOIS privacy protection already included.
Check references
Seek out customer reviews and testimonials, and ask friends or colleagues for a recommendation. You may find that some registrars come highly recommended by your peers. If you make a mistake, you can always transfer your .CA domain to another registrar.
Shop around
Shop around to get a good understanding of how much your domain name, and additional services, will cost. Registrars may offer bundles, packages, or special promotions. Keep in mind that cheapest isnt always necessarily best.
How Does My Website Get Found On Google
Earning a top ranking on Google’s results pages can significantly increase your website traffic and strengthen your business.
Website.com has SEO tools to help get your website found on Google and other search engines. Exploresimple one-click mobile optimization, a site map generator, and the ability to employ on-page SEO techniques like image titlesand content keywords.
Wix Free Website Builder And Domain Name In One Place
Wix is the top web building platform that occupies the highest position in the list of contemporary DIY website builders. It currently empowers millions of websites across the globe, providing myriads of advantages like bogging and eCommerce engines, free responsive highly customizable templates, professional design customization tools, versatile approaches to the web development process and pricing policy.
Wix makes it possible to start and manage website for free and, thus, it offers a free neverending plan that lets you launch a project without any hidden charges.
All websites created with a free plan are initially created on a Wix-branded subdomain. This is enough to test the features of the service and practice your web design skills. However, Wix subdomain will certainly not be enough to publish and promote your website.
To be able to boost your website popularity, recognition and search engine positions, Wix makes it possible to upgrade to one of its paid plans. Each of them comes with an opportunity of your own domain name connection. Such domains are provided at no cost for those users, who decide to get annual plans.
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Purchase The Domain Name
When you have settled on the domain name and a suffix, you will pay to register the domain name with the domain registrar. This is not a one-time purchase, however. Typically, you will pay to own the domain name for one year, after which you can renew your registration for a fee. You can expect a registration fee of about $10 to $15.
How To Register A Domain Name For Free
Youve heard the rumor about free domain names. Is it true?
Yes! There are actually ways to get a free domain name for your website.
First, you can get a free domain name for a web hosting provider such as Bluehost.
They offer every new user a 1-year free domain with any of their hosting plans. You can either register a brand new domain name with them or transfer a domain name, registered with another company.
Some other hosting providers who also have a 1-year free domain policy:
- HostGator
- Dreamhost
- InMotion Hosting
Note: The downside of getting a domain name from a hosting provider is more expensive renewals. After a free year, most hosting providers will charge a higher renewal fee, compared to domain registrars.
Read Also: How Much Do Domain Names Cost
Bluehost Free Domain Name And Hosting For WordPress
Bluehost is a recognizable leader of the niche and the number one hosting provider officially recommended by WordPress. The platform comes with lots of advantages that distinguish it from the competitors. These include one-click WordPress installation, abundance of integrable scripts and plugins, strong uptime rates, fast page load speed, affordable pricing, eCommerce features, localized SEO and content marketing options, widgets and apps for business websites and many more.
Bluehost provides extensive free domain name connection options included into its subscriptions. The choice of the most suitable plan should depend upon your website type, complexity, structure and some other crucial aspects like storage space, bandwidth, extra SSL connection options, email accounts, security options etc. Whatever plan you decide to pick, you will get a domain name as a bonus without having to pay for it.
Its up to you to choose the most suitable solution that works best for your project and comes up to your individual web design needs. Whatever option you eventually pick, you will get a possibility to get a domain name absolutely for free.
Choosing The Perfect Website Domain
Selecting a domain name is like coming up with a name for your child – you need to think it through because youre going to be stuck with that domain for at least a year, even longer, once your business takes off. Its going to be difficult to change to a different one especially if you have already built your branding around that domain. Your website URL is the first thing that users will see and you want your domain to leave a positive and lasting impression on any visitor.
Domain names also affect SEO. Many businesses insert keywords in their website domain to help improve their search engine rankings. Doing this can also define a brand and give users an idea of what the site is about.
Recommended Reading: Googlemail.com Domain
Instantly Check Domain Availability With Our Business Name Generator
Register multiple domains to protect your brand. To expand the list of suggestion the algorithm adds different prefixes and suffixes to your keyword, use google, youtube, amazon and ebay search suggestions, and generate the domain name ideas with the most popular tld. Close is the starting point for every online project. Our domain name generator will help you search for new company ideas and get the best domain name instantly. Register your domain name right away. Use * to make sure the word is always included in the generated domain name.
Register your domain name right away. Over 6 million words database. Automatically recommends and suggests thousands of amazing and magnificent two words, three words as well as brand able names in five different domain name categories or types. When pressing the start button kparser domain name generator parses all the words, phrases and combination of words which has a keyword you entered. Enter your search add one or several keywords that will help generate your domain list.
You can export your favourite available domains and receive alerts when they need renewing. Best domain name generator tools. Finding a great business name is important, and you should find a.com to match it. Register multiple domains to protect your brand. Searching for domain names with these extensions will give you even more domain name ideas.
What Happens If I Dont Renew My Domain Name
If you didnt set auto-renewal or forgot to manually do so despite the reminders from your domain registrar, your domain name will expire. This means several things:
- Your website will no longer be accessible by anyone who types your URL.
- The domain name will be available for sale again, typically in 30-days or so after expiration.
- It can also be auctioned on a website domain auction.
In essence, failure to pay a renewal fee means lost access to your domain.
Read Also: Migrate Wix To Shopify
Why You Need A Custom Domain For Your Website
Yes, it is true that you dont necessary need a domain name for your website. In fact, there are many website builders that offer free plans with free website addresses. But these free website addresses come in the form of a sub-domain. For example, if your website builder is example.com , they may create a sub-domain called john.example.com for you to use on your website. Visitors typing in http://john.example.com will end up at your website.
The sub-domain is free and it is not owned by you, but rather by the website builder and they can create and delete any sub-domain they wish. When a website builder decides to delete a sub-domain, the website that is associated with it is deleted as well. You may say, Simple enough, Ill just build a new website on another website builder.
But you may not realize its not that simple.
When you lose your website address, you lose all your regular visitors people who bookmarked your website and return frequently for updates and new information. When they click on their bookmark link, they will end up at a browser error page.
Not to mention all the marketing work you have to do to publicize your new website and get your visitors back. It will be awhile before your website gets back to what it used to be.
How To Get A Domain Name For Your Website For Free
Now that you are aware of two most popular options to create a website with your own domain name for free, it makes sense to provide more detailed guidelines on their application. This will help you figure out the major steps needed to start and manage a website with Wix and Bluehost as well as focus on the ways to get free domains from each of these systems.
If you decide to give preference to using the website builder and choose Wix for this purpose, mind the following list of steps youll be expected to undergo to launch a website from scratch:
Recommended Reading: What To Do After Buying Domain
What Is The Difference Between A Website And A Domain
To go back to our analogy from the beginning of this article, a website is like that new house youve built: all the pages, graphics, rooms, and decor. Your domain is what officially ties it all together: your homes street address. A domain name helps visitors find your site.
From there, domain owners can create subdomains. In the case of the free hosting providers listed above, they can operate as completely separate websites for site owners who eventually opt for their own domain name, youll frequently see subdomains used to house a blog or storefront.
Domain names are the public-facing address to your website, enabling your readers to find your brand.
From a broader perspective, a website represents the storage space, processing resources, and files located on your hosting providers servers. Easy-to-read domain names, like hostingadvice.com, rely on the Domain Name System, or DNS, to convert those text-based names to a numeric IP address, like 104.16.170.12, that computers can use to find and identify the machine where your site lives.
Forward Emails From Your Custom Domain
Now that youve got a domain name, youre going to route emails from your professional address to your Gmail address, so that you can continue to use the Gmail interface.
Below are the instructions for several different web hosts.
If your host isnt listed: Look at the HostGator instructionschances are you have the same cPanel admin interface.
If that doesnt work: Your provider might not include email forwarding. You can transfer it to Bluehost for a web hosting package that includes email forwarding. Just click Get Started on this link, and on the 3rd step or so put in your existing domain name rather than searching for a new one. Theyll guide you through the rest.
Recommended Reading: Register Domain Privately
Can I Create An Online Store For Free
Yes! With a free Website.com plan, you’ll have the ecommerce tools to set up your online store and add products right away.You have the option to add advanced functionality and marketing features as your business expands.
We’re committed to helping you get online and grow your business, which is why Website.com doesn’t take any commissions on your sales.
Option A: Get A Free Domain Name With A Web Hosting Plan
If youre planning to build your site on WordPress, then youre going to need web hosting. Get the most out of your web hosting plan by choosing one that includes a free domain. On top of that, you will also get a one-click WordPress installation, making your life easy by automatically connecting your domain and web hosting to WordPress.
On the fence about WordPress? If youre not sure if you have the time or aptitude, see how easy it can be and learn how to make a WordPress website.
| PROS | |
|---|---|
| Free domains with plans WordPress users will need anyway | Must purchase a web hosting plan |
| Free .com domains | Plans usually require a 12-month contract to get a free domain |
| You own the domain | |
| Looks professional and credible |
Read Also: How Much For A Domain Name Per Year
Option : Using A Free Subdomain
Several website builders offer subdomains, which is a personal domain that exists within an existing domain name.
Remember that movie Inception where Leonardo DiCaprio dreams that he is in a dream? Something similar happens here.
You end up getting a domain name within a domain name.
Site builders like Wix, Squarespace, and Weebly offer subdomains to their users. They have a free trial as well, so if you like their services, you can purchase their premium plans that include everything you require to build, launch, and manage a professional business website.
Out of the several perks on offer like drag-and-drop site builder, web hosting, templates, and search engine optimization tools, you also get a free domain name.
But why do I still say this method is not ideal?
Lets discuss this with an example.
Imagine you use a free website builder like Wix. You wont have to pay for a domain, yes, but your side will have the Wix subdomain. Itll look something like this:
yourusername.wixsite.com/yoursiteaddress
Suppose your Wix username is My Stunning Website 123, and the domain name you want is myblogsite. Heres what youll get:
Think about it: Does that look professional? Have you seen any credible website have a domain like this?
That is why Id only suggest this method if you want to experiment with your website builders free features or new updates.
The fact that your visitors wont remember your domain or find it hard to remember is another disadvantage.