Find A Custom Domain For Your Site
Whether youre working on a blog, an online portfolio, or an online shop, Mailchimp offers custom domains that can make all the difference to your online presence. And theres no reason to stop there. Use Mailchimp to build your website and connect it to our all-in-one marketing platform to really make your offerings stand out from the rest.
Learn more about how to get a free domain name from Mailchimp and how our offer compares to the competition.
How To Buy A Website Domain For Ever
As we explained, domain names are not for complete sale. Essentially, you are reserving domain name usage for a set period . But you can keep renewing your domain name as many times as you want to.
While you cannot buy it out for good from a registrar, you can hold on to your domain name for as long as you are paying your renewal fee.
Free Domains From Hosting Services
Hosting providers like BlueHost and GoDaddy offer a year of free domain registration with the purchase of their other hosting services. If youre looking to use one of these hosting services to build your website, then its definitely a good idea to take advantage of this option.
That being said, if youre planning on using a website builder like Shopify, the cost of unneeded hosting services will be more expensive than purchasing a custom domain. On top of this, domain registration is only free for the first year. Renewing the domain in the years following will still come with the same costs.
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Choose A Domain Name Registrar
A registrar is a company that reserves and registers domain names on your behalf. When you purchase a domain name, either directly from a registrar or through a web-hosting service, its registered to the DNS for you.
Though there are more than a thousand accredited registrars, its best to stick with more well-known providers. Using a common provider will make it easier to find info on managing your domain and to troubleshoot issues you might have with syncing your domain to other services.
Domains can be purchased from a number of different types of businesses. You might choose to purchase one from a website-building platform , a web-hosting service , or directly from a domain registrar .
Many registrars offer hosting and vice-a-versa. This can be a great way to keep all your website tasks under one roof, but isn’t necessary. You can purchase a domain one place, and use a different company to host if you so choose.
How much does a domain name cost?
Domain names arent sold for a flat-rate. Instead, theyre paid for on a recurring basis . When considering the costs of your domain, be mindful of the difference between the starting price and the renewal price. Typically, basic .com domain names run in the ballpark of about 10-15 USD a year. Premium domains such as 4 letter domains or incredibly common terms can cost significantly higher.
- WHOIS privacy protection: $14.95/year
Register Your Personal E
If an available domain has been found, the ordering process can now begin. Its a good idea for companies and online projects to register the desired second-level domain with different extensions to increase the visibility of the network and protect the company name from domain grabbing or typosquatting.
A domain registration can be completely done online you simply have to fill out the registration form. Your name, address, and e-mail address are the only details needed. Dont forget your bank details to complete the order process.
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Select A Web Hosting Plan
After selecting the appropriate type of hosting, you need to choose the right plan.
Hostinger offers a few different options for shared hosting. If you want to get a free domain, dont select the Single Shared Hosting plan, as it does not come with one.
The cheapest plan is a steal, no doubt, but if you want a free domain, its the wrong way to go. That leaves you with the Premium and Business Shared Hosting plans.
Heres what each plan offers.
Premium Shared Hosting
- Create up to 100 websites
- 100 GB SSD storage
Either of these plans is a solid option. Id lean toward the Premium plan if you arent expecting to hit your resource limits in terms of storage or monthly traffic.
Id recommend the Business plan for folks that are regularly updating their site or expecting a significant amount of traffic. Business plans include automatic daily backups for the last seven days and weekly backups for the last seven weeks.
The ability to restore your site is crucial. Handling backups on your own is a hassle you can avoid with Business plans.
Add The Domain To Your Cart And Complete The Registration Process
If your chosen domain is available, congrats! All you have to do now is add it to your cart and complete the registration process. If you dont yet have an account with the registrar, youll be prompted to sign up.
Be sure to follow the steps we outlined in the How to Register Your Domain Name section to ensure youve successfully registered your domain name.
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Domain Registrar Ad Programs
Domain registrars sometimes offer to give you a free domain in exchange for running ads on your website.
Dont do this.
Theres nothing wrong with ads on your website. However, you wont have any control over the ads and their placement with this method. This will not only hinder the experience for your website visitors but will also damage your SEO ranking.
Plus, what if your website got one million views? You wouldnt see a dime from those ads. All you get is a free domain.
If you want to run ads on your website, do it through a legitimate advertising network, like Google. Dont exchange ads for a free domain.
Three: Create A Database
You will need to extract files from your htdocs folder. An htdocs folder is also conventionally known as www. It is the directory you will retrieve files in your database from. These files will be your default files for your domain. You can change the location and values at a later stage.
Before you can install and build a WP site you need to create a database on your local server. Use MySQL Management Studio or something similar. You may have already installed MySQL when you configured Windows.
When you have created your database you install WordPress using database details. Free resources exist but be prepared to read many pages of information.
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Why Register A Domain Name
Domain names have been around since the advent of the web. The first domain name in history was Symbolics.com, which was registered on March 15, 1985. Today, there are more than 300 million domain names, with millions more added each year.
Your domain name is an important part of establishing your brand. No two domain names can be exactly alike, although they can be similar. Ideally, your custom domain name will be unique and distinctive, so users don’t confuse it with other domain names or different businesses.
In addition, domain names allow users to easily connect to other computer IP addresses. For example, you can type in an address like “Google.com” instead of Google’s numerical IP address of “172.217.13.78.” In other words, domain names make our lives a lot easier.
You might be wondering isn’t a domain name, then, simply a website? Although they are similar, domain names and websites have important differences. Your domain name is the address for your website it is what people use to find your website, which consists of pages, images, and other files.
Choosing a domain name is often the first step when building a website. Read on to learn how to register and buy a domain name.
While a website domain can be an investment, you can also find one for free, especially if you purchase it with hosting.
What Is Web Hosting
Web hosting is a service that allows organizations and individuals to post a website or web page onto the Internet. A web host, or hosting provider, is a business that provides the technologies and services needed for the website or webpage to be viewed on the Internet. Websites are hosted or stored, on special computers called servers. When Internet users want to view your website, all they need to do is type your website address or domain into their browser. Their computer will then connect to your server and your web pages will be delivered to them through the browser.
There are several different types of web hosting, including shared hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated hosting, and cloud hosting. Each type of hosting has its own set of features and benefits, and the right one for you will depend on your specific needs.
Regardless of which type of hosting you choose, it is important to choose a reliable hosting provider that offers good uptime, security, and customer support.
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When You Buy A Domain Name Do You Own It
You dont own your domain name, but you have 100% control over it for the duration of your registration period. This means that you decide which website your domain is pointed to, which registrar maintains it, what information is associated with your domain account, and so on.
Leonardus N.
Leo is a WordPress fanatic and contributor. He likes keeping up with the latest WordPress news and updates, and sharing his knowledge to help people build successful websites. When he’s not working, he contributes to WordPress documentation team and pampers his dogs.
Using Your Custom Domain With A Cms
Alternatively, host your domain independently and use a content management system to build your website. WordPress, Drupal, and all the other CMS heavyweights are set up to cater for personal sites. With dedicated personal domain templates, in a few clicks, you can have a professional resume, or personal site live on the internet. All of the above can be installed with our hosting options.
All CMSs are self-hosted meaning you buy your domain, set up hosting, and choose someone to create your website with. WordPress is the most popular CMS by a longshot. Managed WordPress hosting solutions like EasyWP take the heavy lifting out of hosting a domain yourself. Start a website in minutes and connect it to your particular domain. It does the hard work for you.
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Connecting Your Domain Name To Mailchimp
Whether youve bought your domain through Mailchimp or a third party, you can transfer your domain name and connect it to your Mailchimp account. Once connected, you can use that domain with a custom landing page or Mailchimp-hosted website. If you dont already have a website, Mailchimp offers a free website builder that you can use to make your brand stand out with no coding skills required.
Blog Vs Website: Is There A Difference
A blog can stand alone or be part of a website. Blogs are updated regularly, while websites remain static and the content is spread out over multiple pages. With a blog, the latest blog posts appear first. And the older content gets put behind the new posts.
The blogging industry has taken the internet by storm. Blogging is the most popular form of digital content for promoting brands and selling products and services. Before blogging became so popular, businesses were satisfied to get a website designed for them. Most small businesses and even large corporations would hire professionals, tech-savvy people to design the website from start to finish. They even paid to have someone keeping it up and running. How times have changed!
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A Domain Name For Personal Branding
Everyone has a story to tell, whether it’s your business, your day-to-day life or your passion. Take a domain thats as unique as you are, to tell your story. A unique URL with personal branding shows interested parties that youre running a professional outfit.
Trailblazers like Laura Roeder branded their entire business and web strategy around their persona. With her signature domain, shes created a page that reflects her love of videos, and the branding that goes into her products.
Keep your digital profile up to date with your latest work, so your older clients and people that may have heard of you in the past can be impressed with what you’re doing now. They may keep you in mind for future projects.
How Easy Is It To Make A Website
Using Website.com is the easiest way to make a website! Our tools provide the freedom to create your free website without any design or codingknowledge. You can even create your entire website, from start to finish, right from a mobile device! Just start with a pre-made layout, addyour own website content, and click publish to get online. Need a hand? Our team of designers offer design services to help you craft yourwebsite on the Website.com editor, so you can have total control of your website after your design is complete.
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Best: Free Domain With Email Hosting
Select add account, gmail will send a confirmation email. Just make sure you click on Gmail and MailGuns alternate emails and youll be using your email in no time.
Set your new email address. address as the default in Gmail settings, and no one will ever see the email you use to sign in to Gmail. If you already have a custom domain but want to use Gmail as your messaging platform, youve come to the right place.
The process of creating a Gmail account and connecting it to a custom domain is easy and should only take a few minutes.
3. Go to the Accounts & Import tab, scroll down to find Checking Mail from Other Accounts and click Add Mail Account.
How To Buy A New Domain Name
If you dont already own a domain name, and you want a custom domain for your new site, then you may have to bite the bullet and pay the fee.
Registering a new domain requires you to work with a domain registrar like NameCheap or GoDaddy.
No matter where you buy, you can expect to pay about $10 USD for a one year registration of your custom .com domain. If you lock down your domain for 2, 3, 4, or 5 extra years, then you may get a small discount, but that $10 USD fee is still pretty hard to beat.
Of course, certain extensions vary in price. Websites that end with .net, for example, tend to cost $2 or $3 more than a .com domain, as do websites that end with .org.
Today, there are dozens of new Top Level Domains, or TLDs, that let your website end with all sorts of crazy combinations including .club or .us.com. These TLDs vary widely in price and are often owned by private resellers. In general, .com is the safest bet when youre buying a brand new domain. Its the one recognized around the world.
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Some Things To Keep In Mind
- Purchase immediatelyIts nearly impossible to claim a domain once its been taken unless youve got deep pockets, so act fast.
- Register it for as long as possibleRegistering for longer periods saves you the hassle of renewing each year, reduces the risk of expiry, and usually means discounts.
- Pay in advanceAlso works out cheaper if you can afford to pay for hosting etc. in advance. The advantage being you are saved the hassle of renewing each year.
- A clean URL, one that is not full of numbers and letters just looks better. People are more likely to share a simple URL that doesnt take up two lines of text. Keep it as simple as possible such as your full name or company name, for a cleaner look.
- Private vs professionalMight make sense to get two distinctive domains, one focusing on your professional life, one on your personal life.
- UpkeepYou should build high-quality profiles, and a website if desired, and optimize all to rank as high as possible for your personal domain name.
Another key point to remember is consistency. Its good practice to maintain a consistent name across all the platforms you are using. Use your business name or actual name when creating vanity URLs on Twitter and Facebook for example. This lends credibility to your brands. It also keeps things memorable and helps avoid any confusion as to whether visitors have stumbled on the correct profile. Plus they will find your profile more easily.
To Impress Clients And Recruiters
Where can I find you online?
Do you have a website?
These are now common questions, especially if you run a business or are self-employed. In this digital age, people expect businesses and individuals to present themselves in a professional manner on the web. There are a few ways to go about this.
Create a virtual business card
Think of those times youve been given a business card. It gets crinkled up in your pocket and becomes indecipherable, lost, thrown away or stuffed in a drawer never to be seen again. Thats why online business cards are becoming commonplace.
You might simply want to be more environmentally friendly, or maybe you enjoy the real estate a website affords you to flex your acumen. An online business card is a smart, and cost-effective way to run your business. Plus, when recruiters Google your name, your digital business card will be presented to them. How about that for a first impression?
If youre still a fan of physical business cards, then dont forget to try out our Business Card Maker. With free shipping and beautiful designs, you can order them right to your door.
We also have Site Maker, an easy way to make your personal website come alive in minutes. If youve got a business and want to show the world, its an all-in-one package address, hosting, and site security encryption.
Present your Virtual CV or resume
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