When you think of having your website done, you are often asked if you have a domain name or an website hosting. We can sometimes get confused and mistaking them for the same thing. It can be also very hard to choose with company to work with and with services and plan to choose.

A domain name will be the first thing that the visitor will know about your company and your website. This is the address you will write on the research bar of your navigator.

It can be finishing by .com or .com.au or .org, up to what the company will decide and what also will be available.

If you have the choice between .com and .com.au, your decision should be based on where is your principal market. If you would like to sell essentially in Australia, I would recommend to register a domain name finishing by .com.au. If you are thinking to mainly focus on exportation, I would suggest to get a .com.

A domain name being unique on all the web, the one you are thinking of can be already taken. Your website builders should be able to help you finding what is available or not with the domain name search. You can also visit any hosting websites and most of them have a free domain name search.

A good domain name is a name that includes your company name, as well as your main activity for your business, such as www.mybusinessname-webagency.com

It is important that you organize your domain name registration yourself as you will be sure to be your website owner. It is possible to transfer your domain name from one company to another one. In that case, you will need to contact the company where you registered your domain name and ask for the transfer.

Before you buy your domain name, you should check with the hosting you are willing to get as many hosting companies to offer a free domain name with their plans.

A website could be compared to your house. You need to find the land to build your house. For a website it is the same. You need a space on the net to have your website built.

Those spaces are provided by the web hosting company. Like for a house, you need to rent that space.

The price and the quality will be depending to the company you choose to work with. It is an important matter because it will affect the quality of your website. To choose it carefully, it is important to know what you need, like if you need more a wordpress hosting or muli-sites hosting or all other specifications. It is not always better to choose the wordpress hosting for a wordpress website as it might have more limitations in term of spaces and database.

The different hosting companies offer different prices, services and hosting plans. Some that are a requirement for all professional websites, some that are no needs for all businesses. Some of the services offered by web hosting are professional email address, automatic backups, SSL, high traffic or support team.

Your web designer should be able to suggest what you need and get the best price for you depending of the kind of website, if it is a statiques website, or a ecommerce website and the number of visitor you are expecting on your website.

Domain name and hosting services could be overwhelming to choose, with some very specific questions to be aware of. Do not hesitate to contact your professional web designer or web agency for their help and keep in mind that you need to take it under your name.

Be aware that if a web designer offers you to get your domain name or hosting for you, under their name, that could lead to possible trouble in the future, like losing your full website or even worth losing your domain name (the name you have been advertising for some times).

A professional point of view about hosting and domain name should be included in the web design services of design and development.

It is still looking complexe and you would like some help, contact us to see how we can help you.