How and why to get your own domain
Some bloggers start out on free hosted blog platforms like wordpress.com on a test basis. They plan to establish traffic, purchase a domain and then to switch over to paid hosting.
The Technorati Authority and Rank as well as the Google Page Rank belong to the sub-domain url for your blog.
If purchase a domain and move your blog on to it those will disappear unless you also purchase domain mapping.
Introduction
This post contains some blogging tips pertaining to getting your own domain.
You may want to start by reading Domain Name Transfers.
After that if your are intendeing to self host a wordpress.org blog then I recommend watching the free videos here
Video 1 – Why You Should Use WordPress
Video 2 – How To Get Your Own Domain Name
Video 3 – How To Get A Web Host
Video 4 – How To Install WordPress
Video 5 – How To Upload Files To Your Webhost Using FTP
Video 6 – Choosing A WordPress Theme For Your New Blog
Video 7 – How To Install And Use WordPress Plugins
Video 8 – How To Create Your First Blog Post And Blog Page
Video 9 – What RSS Is And Why You Need It
Video 10 – How To Use Feedburner For Supercharging Your RSS Capabilities
Domain Mapping
How do I take ‘wordpress’ out of my url?
Email and a blog on the same domain
Can I change my blogdomain.wordpress.com?
1. Build your own brand and credibility
The way to gain and readership and also to make money online is to build up credibility among your customers. Having your own domain name is the first step in doing that.
By having your own website with your own domain name, you can start to build your own “brand” that will eventually become recognized as uniquely yours “mybrand.com“. Your “brand” will be more credible if it’s not associated with a free hosted subdomain like blogs on blogspot or wordpress.com.
Your readers and/or customers will feel more comfortable buying whatever it is that you are selling if you have your own domain name because it makes your customers feel that they are dealing with a large, established company, rather than with some fly by night operator.
Also note that if you want good sponsors (advertisers) for your website, a domain name tends to give your website an aura of respectability. And getting your own domain means you can have an email address and blog on the same domain.
2. Easy location
If you get a domain name that describes your company’s business or name “mybrandproductor servicename.com“, then your readers can easily remember the name and return to your site without having to look it up. In fact, if you get a good name that describes your product or service, you might even get people who were searching “mybrandproductorservicename” into their browser.
3. Better search engine ranking
When it comes to search engine ranking the keywords in the homepage (index) of a domain rank higher than any other pages. Consequently, if your blog is a subdomain (sub-page) under a free hosting website, it’s hard take your page ranking to the top. Moving your blog onto your own domain means it’s more likely to be found. Also (see 6. below) as you will have complete control over your template you can use some basic SEO to your advantage.
References:
Building a blog with readers in mind
How to structure a reader and search engine friendly blog
Blogging: Content is King
Ten Traffic Promotion Tips for Bloggers
Blogging: Characteristics of pillar posts
Deep link posts: Bring your readers back again and again
How to select and use anchor text effectively
The Importance of Keywords
Improving your Google Page Rank
Technorati: The Six Month Link Window
Matt Cutt’s White Hat SEO Tips for Bloggers: WordCamp 2007
4. Your name is your own and it’s portable
Your domain is your own. If you ever change your web host, your domain name goes with you. Your regular visitors or customers who knew your site name as “mybrandproductorservicename.com” (for example) would not have to be informed about a change of URL. They would simply type your domain name and they’d be automatically and seamlessly routed to your new site. It’s also to your advantage to pay for 3 -5 years, as opposed to 1 year as it indicates long term intention and this is considered in your page ranking.
5. Complete control of your template
On a sub-domain you are limited when it comes to theme selection and making template changes. In fact, on some blogging platforms bloggers cannot access their underlying template files and make any changes at all. In fact, on some blogging platforms bloggers cannot access their underlying template files and make any changes at all. For example, at wordpress.com all bloggers work on a multi-user blogging platform and that means they cannot edit their templates. Any editing of one blog theme would result in all other blogs with the same theme being likewise changed.
6. Complete control over advertising
In addition blogging on a subdomain means you have not control over the nature or advertising that your web host chooses to run on your site. Moving to a domain means you can make these decisions or even the decision to have no advertising at all.
Reference:
Adsense
7. Email
Also, by doing business under your own domain name, you can use multiple email “aliases” all related to your domain.
8. Additional functions
On your domain you can use plugins that may not be allowed on subdomains to add functions to your site. For example: free hosted blog at wordpress.com do not have plugin tabs. However, by moving to self hosting a wordpress.org install you can add forums and other plugins that will render your site as a CMS (central management system).
Reference:
WordPress.org plugins
How to purchase a domain
1. Think of several domain name choices and try them out to see which one is available that suits your needs.
Try different combinations of hyphens to generate a Hyphenated Domain
Try different extensions by selecting different Top Level Domains
Try different words in front your name eg Premium Words, Cool Words, Business Words
Try changing individual letters of your domain using our Domain Name Mangle tool.
Try searching for common Typos to either catch typing mistakes
Try entering Multiple Choices for any of the words that make up your domain idea.
Use our Thesaurus to find alternative words for your domain name.
Try jumbling up your words to find different Word combinations
Or try out Advanced domain Name Search Source
Tips and Tools:
Domain Naming Tips Domain Naming Tips
Dot-o-mator Domain Name Generator
Domain Name Generator
NameBoy Domain Names
DomainFellow
2. Use your credit card to purchase the domain name.
Before starting the domain registration process, have the following in front of you:
Note: The contact information you provide during the registration process will be public information. There can be an option of Private Registration available through the registrar you use.
- List of domain names selected as possibilites.
- PayPal account information if you wish to pay via PayPal.
- Credit card information. Have this handy even if you were intending to pay via PayPal, in case PayPal is not an option.
- Your address, postal code, a phone number and fax number.
- The name and contact information (including email addresses) for Administrative, Billing and Technical contacts for the domain name.
- Email address of domain owner. This is important! If there is a problem with your domain name then the registrar can get a hold of you. Also, if they have this service, they can email you a notice when your domain name is about to expire.
- Be prepared to purchase your domain name when you sit down to do this. Tomorrow, the domain name you want maybe gone. Source
3. Hire a webhost for your domain. There are numerous web hosts available. The way most bloggers select one usually by asking blogger friends which web hosts they use. Aside from that Google Searches can bring provide an increased choice to select from.
4. Ask your web host for the DNS IP addresses and names of their primary and secondary nameservers. Then follow the set up instructions.
5. Install your software or have someone do it for you. If you are going to use wordpress then free services are available for this purpose.
6. Export your blog contents out of your sub domain and import them into your new domain.
See also: Twelve Steps to Getting Your Blog Off to a Good Start
Related posts:
Tutorial: Setting up a self-hosted WordPress.org blog
Blog, CMS or Website?
WordPress Installation Video Guide
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I wish I had this 7 months ago, when I didn’t read that fine print.. not for commercial sites… on the free blogs! Great post, but such valuable info to have. I think as a newbie, you get quite excited once you do sign up for those freebies, you go full throttle, this is excellent!
This is one of those things I have been telling peeps forver. It is very important to have your own domain name. Even if you are not going to use it immediatley – go get it and keep it – it costs practically nothing and it will save you headaches later!
Great stuff!!!!!
I’ve heard people talking about domains in the discussions and I didn’t understand why it was important and now I do. Thanks tt! I’m still practicing so I’ll stick with typepad for now, but who knows maybe later I’ll get my own domain.
BTW: I wanted a new avatar, but I got to looking at the one I had on yesterday and it was almost x-rated – well not really, but I homestly didn’t see Pocohontas kissing the prince at first! I thought this one was more of a G rating.
Thanks again!
Very informative, well written post, as always. Thank you for all the valuable information. You are a valuable asset to the blogging community.
Very good information, when I said I wanted my own domain, my hubby got one for me, and I have been trying to make it work with his help. Building everything from scratch, taking old posts and placing them in their new home.. Fixing things the way I have it pictured in my head to look, experimenting and implementing. It has been a lot of work, but so worth it. It is still a work in progress, but I am growing to love it more and more. Thanks for this great post!
I had no idea what I was doing when I started my blog a few months ago. I think I’ll be referring to the info above quite often when I make the switch to my own domain. Thanks!
EXCELLENT INFO! I have a friend weighing the options currently and I’ll be sending this article right over. I love the new layout too by the way.
@Susie
Thanks for the kind words. It’s good to hear that what I write is useful to others so I really appreciate receiving your comment. :)
@Benny
Yay! You liked it. I’m so glad. :)
@mariamichelle
I think you have made the right decision . If you are happy at typepad stay there. For, as you say, if you choose to move to a domain later you can.
@searchingwithin
What a nice thing to say. I’m sending you a big cyber HUG :)
@K. Fields
I’ve had only a moment or two to peek at your site yesterday and I saw all the great work you have been doing. Work and homelife here have been nuts for 2 weeks and it’s taking it’s toll on me. My time is at a premium and I’m falling behind on reading blogs … SIGH
All my best to you Kathy :)
@onebagnation
I think you are coming along very nicely with your blog. Don’t feel pressured. It’s more important that you enjoy what you are doing and learning things as you got than it is to race head and have all kinds of corrections to make. Happy blogging :)
Great tips and great advice. I had a site but when I started blogging I was on the blogger platform. I finally just moved to self hosted WordPress, combining my blog on my site. Best thing I ever did! I really appreciate your user friendly advice.
Thanks Karen. I appreciate your praise. :)
Good tips TT. However I am going to say something different here. I am on free wordpress and while one of the reasons is that I have a serious problem with tech stuff another thing is that I am happy with a sub-domain. Everyone says one is not supposed to be! I have thought about this and come to the conclusion that people will read the content if its good and care less about the domain name. Maybe I am wrong.
This came at an ideal time for me, as I am thinking about branching out from wordpress.com into my own domain. Thanks for this article.
@katesaltfleet
Ir’s good to hear that the timing was right on for you. Happy blogging :)
@nita
The point you raise about having the technical end taken care of you by staff is an important one. When it came to my personal blog I observed the number adsense ads being shown on my blog and nature of the advertising that wordpress.com was running on my site and it became my motivator to move to self-hosting. Remarkably, the fact that we cannot see the advertising when we are signed in has led many bloggers to believe there is no adverting on wp.com subdomains when there most assuredly is. http://wank.wordpress.com/2008/05/11/flash-aaaah/
Here’s how to see them:
If you log out, clear cookies and search Google using Internet Explorer, they’ll show up more often than not. The good news is that they don’t appear on your blog’s front page, only permalink pages. The idea is that only casual searchers coming in from Google will see them and not your regular readers. And people using Firefox never have to see any because it’s Matt’s favourite browser.
excellent post.
Everytime I read an article like this, it gets me closer to setting up a domain!!
@machineehuman
Thanks for your praise. I appreciate it. :)
@Tommy
The best time to do this move to a domain is when your blog is young and there aren’t many posts. If you wait you may find that your file is so large following export that you cannot import it until you go into it and break it down into smaller files. That of course leaves room for errors to occur.
Also if your blog is image rich then wasting time when it comes to making the move to a domain will be something that you may regret. When you export your posts out of your of your blogspot blog all images will be lost. You will have to upload each and every one of them into the posts again. So waiting is not at all a good plan.
(pssst: you made it to the front page in How To!)
@raincoaster
I almost always have a post here http://news.wordpress.com/category/howto/ however, the flashenabled site with all the advertising on it (staff says we are negotiating with them re: VIP hosting) frequently has 3 and even 4 spots on the how to page.
Setting that aside I don’t digg or stumble or submit my own posts to reddit and this one was dugg http://digg.com/tech_news/How_and_why_to_get_your_own_domain
BTW when are you going “blow the popsicle stand” and join Blog Catalog? lol :P
I didn’t know this TT. I don’t like the idea of ads on my blog! I hate it! I’m going to check it now.
I agree with moving early I moved after quite some time and it was a pain. I still have posts from way back not formatted correctly due to bloggers weird formatting.
@Nita
Most bloggers do not even know the ads are there. http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2006/09/06/on-ads/
http://wank.wordpress.com/2007/09/29/i-am-officially-a-sucker/#comment-79663
@Cooper
Thanks for your comment. If I had known all these things when I first began blogging I would have bought a domain name and domain mapping right at the start.
Nice avatar tt :)
I’m glad you like it. :)
tt you have been a bit naughty here. The links of the commentators are no followed.
Sorry. I am wrong. But folks without valid urls are able to post. And they are bloggers?
@Root,
Yikes! Did your first comment ever throw me for a loop. lol :P
Yes every comment I approved for posting here came from a blogger. Some may have “private” blogs but I do know who they are. Many are from the Blog Catalog social network.
wow is this just in time for me. I’ve bookmarked it for beginning my lonnnngggg work on migrating, or not, but in any case growing and maximizing my blog and blog enjoyment. Thank you Timethief (Washwords, here on wordpress and on blog catalog.)
Hello there,
It’s good to hear from you and also good to hear that my post will be useful to you when you make the move. Take good care and happy blogging. :)
Wow, this is really helpful information. Thanks!
You’re welcome and happy blogging!
Hi
You have a great post. You’re right. Having a free website or domain is a dud. Please read my post too with regards to having a free website.:D
getting-a-free-website
@marydane
I’ve read your post and others can locate it by clicking your username and looking for the title on your blog. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Having own domain is great advantage for me. I can edit theme, add plugin, and have control my files.
@downloader
Yes, having your own domain provides the benefit complete control over the template and the plugins.
Thanks for the good tips. oMan
@oMan
You’re most welcome and best wishes for happy blogging. :)
There are some really nice tips here, I enjoyed the read and there’s plenty more to come back for…Hope you are feeling better with your injurys!
@aniya
Thanks so much for your feedback and well wishes. The good news is that I’m feeling better every day.
In purchasing a domain how much would cost you?
Check out [http:www.namecombo.com] It’s a really cool domain name generator and company name generator similar to Dotomator but with more word lists and the ability to create domain names with 1-4 words. You can find available domain names from a huge selection of word lists. You can customize lists with your own words which lets you come up with literally thousands of possible domain names incorporating your keywords if you wish. It offers bulk domain name lookup and domain registration. There is also both a three word version and four word version which are great for keyword driven domain name variations.
@raindance
I checked it out and tried to figure out how to use it but failed to understand how it was in any way helpful to me. Perhaps my readers may be able to fathom its usefulness.