How To Host Your Own Domain Name

Create A G Suite Account And Follow The Wizard

To get started, website and follow the account setup wizard to configure the basic details, like which custom domain you want to use with G Suite. This will be the domain name at the end of your email address e.g. @yoursite.com:

If youre the only person who will be using Google Workspace , youre finished once you complete the wizard. If you want to give other people custom email addresses, you can also do that after completing the initial setup wizard:

Choose The Best Domain Name Option

When youre checking for available domain names, youll often find that your first, second, and tenth choices are already taken. Some of the different approaches you can take when this happens are:

• Keep searching. Let your creative juices flow, and continue to search until you find something you love or at least like.
• Choose another extension. If the .com isnt available and youre set on a certain name, consider the .net or .org if you think it will work.
• Reach out to the owner. Maybe the domain is already owned, but its not being put to much use. You could reach out to the owner with an offer.

Create A Website With A Website Builder

A website builder is a tool that lets you create and design a website without having to deal with code. It uses a drag-and-drop editor to alter the sites appearance and offers plenty of pre-made template options to get you started.

To access the platform, youll have to pay a subscription fee. However, one of the advantages is that it includes hosting, simplifying the process of website creation. Some website builder platforms even let users register custom domain names.

The only limitation is that you will be bound to the features that come with the subscription plan, making it tricky if you want to build a more complex site.

Therefore, we recommend using a website builder if youre looking for the simplicity of the process and aiming to create a simple site with few pages, such as an online portfolio and a personal blog.

There are plenty of website builders in the market, but we will demonstrate the process using Zyro.

1. Set Up a Zyro Account

First of all, sign up for a Zyro account. You can create a new account with your email or using a Google or account.

Then, you have to subscribe to one of the four plans. The Basic entry-level plan costs $2.90/month and comes with 3 GB of bandwidth and 1 GB of storage, suitable for small websites.

We recommend the Unleashed planif youre not planning on creating an online store. It comes with unlimited bandwidth and storage, as well as advanced features like Google Analytics,for $3.90/month.

2. Choose a Template

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Some Things To Know About Sending Emails This Way

The Gmail portion of this method is 100% free. However, you will need to have an email host to make it work. If you are already working with a web hosting service, they can most likely provide you with email hosting. If not, you can just to receive low-cost, professional web hosting services.

I recommend them because they are one of the most affordable services on the market. Their plans start at about $2.95 a month, which includes hosting for your website, email hosting and free domain name registration for 1 year. On top of that, they offer a 30-day money-back guarantee and 24-hour customer support. If you dont need a website but still want an email domain, you can always just purchase email hosting from another provider.

Regardless of which provider you choose, once you have email hosting taken care of, you can use the following steps to help you set up Gmail so it works with your custom email at no extra fee.

In this tutorial, Im going to use screenshots from the customer dashboard at Bluehost, but this method works with any host. It just will have a slightly different graphical interface. I also included step-by-step directions for several other popular web hosts.

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List Of Domain Name Registrars

There are numerous domain name registrars. Listed below are just a few, along with my comments, if I know anything about them.Note that the domain name industry is highly competitive, with prices wildly fluctuating throughout the year, every year, soits impossible to really mention accurate prices below unless I spend all my time updating this page. Please check their sitesfor the latest rates. Unless otherwise stated, I have listed everything in US dollars, although if you go to theregistrars site, you may see the prices in your local currency.

In addition, as mentioned earlier, a number ofcommercial web hostswill give you a free domain name if you are hosting with them, as will some of the registrars above.

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I Bought My Domain But I Want A Different One

As we have already incurred the expense for this domain name with our domain registration partners, it is not possible to change that domain name. Your only option at this stage would be to purchase a new domain name by unpublishing your site and then purchasing a new domain. You can do this by following these steps:

Your original domain still belongs to you and you will receive renewal notifications about this domain about three months prior to the date it will be renewed.

What Are The Benefits Of A Custom Domain

In addition to creating a space for your business to live online, a custom domain has other benefits. Here are some of the top reasons companies select a personalized domain name.

• Brand identity: Your custom domain name becomes your company’s online moniker. Visitors expect your domain name to match or closely resemble your company name, so stay consistent to maintain brand identity.
• Credibility: A custom domain name boosts credibility and makes your website appear legitimate to visitors.
• Memorability: The more straightforward your domain name is, the easier it is to remember. The easier it is to remember, the more likely people will remember it when typing in their search bar and that means more traffic directed to your website.
• Differentiation from competitors: Use a clean, catchy custom domain to differentiate yourself from competing sites with clunkier domains.
• A custom domain name boosts search authority if you use it right. It takes time to accumulate quality content, internal links, and backlinks, so older domains typically have more authority.

You’ll be assigned a subdomain if you start creating your site on a free website builder like Weebly, WordPress, or Webnode. Your URL might appear something like: example.wordpress.com. Later, you may decide to upgrade your account to a paid plan and purchase a custom domain but your domain authority essentially resets to zero. See what we mean about the importance of using a custom domain name from the get-go?

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Receive Emails From Your Current Address In Outlookcom

The benefit of using a forwarder is that your mails will arrive almost instantly in your Outlook.com account instead, even when Outlook itself is closed.

However, this requires proper forwarding support by your current ISP but nowadays most ISPs provide support for this. If your ISP doesnt offer forwarding capabilities, dont worry, we can take care of that in Step 4.

Increased Value Of Your Asset/brand

Depending on the current value of your asset or brand, having a forever domain name attached to it could help you stand out from the crowd should you choose to put it up for sale. Lets face it, one of the things that we look out for when buying or leasing real estate is the number of years left on the lease the more the number of years left to the next renewal, the more inclined we will be to make a purchase. So in your case as a seller, this translates into a higher sale price because you can confidently reassure the buyer that they will never have to incur any renewal costs.

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Avoid Numbers And Hyphens

Imagine asking your 10 friends to spell or pronounce a domain name filled with numbers and dashes. It wont work.

If you choose a domain name with these elements, youre likely going to lose traffic to people who cant remember your domain or effectively tell someone else how to find it. We probably wouldnt have Facebook today if you had to go to Face-Book.com to reach the site.

How To Host A Domain / Website On Your Own

If youre a developer/blogger who is tech-savvy and just plain adventurous, you might feel confident enough to host a domain/website on your own. Thats right, in your basement or maybe just in your own bedroom. If you think a hosting company like us wouldnt even want to broach the topic with youyoure mistaken! We are as geeky as some of you are and appreciate those with a taste of adventure.

If youre in the group which isnt sure exactly how to host a domain or website on your own, lets explore this:

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Why Create Your Own Mail Server

There are many reasons why you should setup your own cloud mail server:

• Privacy: When you setup your own mail server, you know that you are the only mailbox on that server sending mail. This means that you can be confident that the privacy of the server is optimal.
• Security: Managing your own cloud mail server means that you can maintain the highest level of security. When other mail users are on the same server, you never know what security policies may be compromised.
• Reliability: When you create your own cloud mail server, you never have to worry about other users sending abusive mail on the server. This ensures reliability and uptime can be easily maintained.

Which Provider To Choose

When choosing a custom domain provider, opt for one that has a range of global domains available in its system . This is especially important if youre targeting customers in a specific region, as having a customized domain will increase your chances of showing up on the first search engine results page .

Even if youre not targeting customers in a specific region, its always a good idea to trust a domain provider that has that option available. You might decide to grow your business in the future and expand, so having a provider with global domain options is super convenient.

We like to think were a great example of a provider with a wide range of global domains that can be used to target communities all over the world. From African and Middle Eastern domains to American domains, theres something to suit every business.

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What You Should Know About Having Your Own E

Users wishing to register a personal e-mail domain can choose any top-level domain and an available domain name within the desired namespace. Its worth noting that domain names under a TLD can only be assigned once. The choice of available endings depends on the provider. If a desired name is assigned under a particular TLD, users can switch to another ending. The new domain endings offer the opportunity to create an expressive domain name or regional reference: booking@your.hotel info@company.newyork Be aware that the respective TLD authority defines the rules by which domain names are formed. All top-level domains can be formed with letters a-z, numbers 0-9, and hyphens. Theres no difference between capital and lower-case. Some TLDs also allow special characters in the domain, such as letters with accents. Generally the use of these characters in e-mail domains isnt recommended, as these domains can lead to problems with mail servers and e-mail programs.

Register a domain name

Build your brand on a great domain, including SSL and a personal consultant!

Private registration

Look For Additional Services

Additional services include an SSL certificate, file sharing, chat, a business email, and email support.

Basic websites often include third-party services for backup or professional email. Well go into more depth about these two below.

On the more advanced side, File Transfer Protocol is another popular addition. FTP is a protocol used to communicate and transfer files between computers.

Once you create and host an FTP site, you authorize users to access whatever files youve made available.

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Two Options Explained: Website Builder Vs Hosting

The range of web development tools is really extensive and versatile, but there are still two trusted web development options. You can either use a website builder or pick reliable hosting that provides free domain connection feature.

Lets have a look at two platforms, which are the most popular and credible representatives of both types of systems. These are Wix and Bluehost.

Add Pages To Your Website

To add a page on WordPress, go to Pages -> Add New. Every site requires a different set of pages, but generally, here are the five must-have pages:

Homepage

Whether you use a website builder or WordPress, the homepage provides the first impression about your business to visitors.

That said, you shouldnt add too much information to it. Cluttered and messy homepages will deter visitors from continuing to browse as its harder to find relevant information.

Instead, keep it organized and concise and put visuals to guide visitors to the section or page that contains the information they want.

About Page

This page should provide information about your company history, vision and mission, team members, and testimonials. It helps customers, investors, or potential new hires to know more about your business.

However, avoid overexplaining your products or services. You can provide contact information here, but we recommend using a dedicated page for it.

Product or Service Page

The product or service page is crucial and decisive to convert your visitors into new customers. Provide details like features, benefits, and prices.

Product photos or videos also help make the page more visually appealing.

Blog Page

Adding a blog to your site can help drive traffic and increase conversion rates.

When writing blog posts, use relevant keywords to help your site rank higher on search engines.

Contact Page

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Create A Website With WordPress

Another way to create a site is by using a content management system , which is a piece of software that enables you to create and modify website content.

There are several CMS platforms to choose from, such as WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal. That said, we recommend using WordPress for creating a site as its the most beginner-friendly CMS and has the most themes and plugins.

1. Install WordPress

You need to install WordPress on your web hosting account to get started. If you use hPanel, the WordPress auto-installer makes the process much simpler.

If youre using another type of control panel, the process should be similar using the Softaculous auto-installer.

Alternatively, install WordPress manually by downloading the software and copying its files to the hosting account using an FTP client or file manager.

2. Choose a Theme

Customizing the websites appearance requires a WordPress theme. Its a pack of files containing code, style sheets, and custom elements to construct the websites design and basic functionality.

When you install WordPress, it comes with a default theme called Twenty Twenty-One. However, there are more than 8,000 free WordPress themes in the WordPress theme directory to choose from.

Buy A Domain And Web Hosting

You can purchase domains on many sites, including Midphase, where we are buying domains and hosting for our class .

Midphase right now has a Personal web hosting offer that includes: A free domain and web hosting for 1 website and 1 subdomain. The 1 year web hosting plan costs $ 42.84. A 3 month plan is $ 10.71.

There are many other sites to buy domains like Gandi, Namecheap, I want my name, etc. I specially recommend Gandi.net because of its proven track record of taking special care of security, and its supports of a variety of open source projects.

Most will offer discounts and cheap prices when you buy a domain for the first time but when you renew it, the price will be higher. If you can afford it buy it for more than one year right away.

Since you want to build your portfolio and online presence, first try to get your own name as a domain but if you cant, be creative and come up with something you know you will use for quite some time and it is memorable. First Site has 11 great tips for choosing a domain name.

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