Congratulations! You want to start a website. This is a great first step in creating a viable business, side hustle, or hobby. It gets you out there for the world to see and creates a more credible appearance to possible customers. Now the fun begins. We at Axiom hope to cut through the “noise” that is on the internet and help you understand what is needed and the language that you will run across too.
First, you are going to need a “Domain” name. This is a technical term for the address on the internet of your website. For example, Axiom Small Business Group’s web domain is “axiomsmallbusinessgroup.com”. We kept it simple and used our entire name as our address. This is a pretty easy process to come up with a domain (address) name for your site. The company I used is NameCheap.com (Affiliate Link Here). Upon loading the page in the you can see a search bar to search the domain name that you want.
It will search the internet and let you know if the “.com” domain is already taken or if it is available. If it is taken you may be able to buy another ending. I only recommend “.com” endings as this ending stands for “commercial” and is the most common. It includes all business websites, websites that want to make money online, personal websites, blogs, portfolios, and almost anything in between.
NOTE: All 4 and 5 letter words are taken. This is why a lot new ideas are some form of short words combined. Think snap-chat, face-book, insta-gram, etc. So you can follow these leads or make a longer name much we did with axiomsmallbusinessgroup.
NOTE: Just because a website does not appear online does not mean the domain is open. Since domains are around $10 it is easy to buy them and not use them. They may be bought and just be dormant.
Once you find a domain name that suites you and you can live with the cost it is time to buy. Just click on the “Add to cart” button to the right of the domain name you wish to purchase.
Once it is added to your cart you can search for more names or on the right-hand side click “View Cart.” This will show you what has been added and the total cost.
If everything is correct click “Confirm Order” and you are almost done purchasing your domain name.
Here is where you create an account so that namecheap.com can assign the domain name that you are purchasing to an account, your account and thus you become the proud new owner of that domain. Store this in a safe place so that you don’t lose your login and password.
Once you have registered you can continue to fill in the information and pay for your order. Congratulations you just purchased a piece of online property and are now the proud the owner of a website address (domain). Think of this like a vacation home online. You also can login and manage the domain name to make sure it auto renews ever year and you do not lose it. Next, we need to get hosting. Think of this like the caretaker of the property.