Register Your Very Own Domain!

If you are thinking about starting a blog or already have one on a free service such as Tumblr or Wordpress, you may have the itch to get your very own domain name. The free blogging providers create a subdomain for your blog when you sign up for their service. For example, in this article we signed up for a service called Tumblr. When our new account was created, tumblr gave us the subdomain, promediapublishing.tumblr.com. This is a good thing, we get our own unique URL and have some brand recognition in the domain itself.

If you would like to change your URL and further increase your branding, it may be a good idea to register your very own domain. This means, instead of having a subdomain like promediapublishing.tumblr.com, we get rid of the tumblr.com part and just use ProMediaPublishing.com.

Step 1

For this tutorial, let's use the registrar service Godaddy.com to get a domain.



Step 2

Once we are at the front page of GoDaddy, we need to check to see if our domain is available. There is a high chance it is not available, so be ready to change your original name to something else. To check the availability, we use the box below. A large green arrow has been added to help find your away around.



Step 3

At this point, we are checking to see if ProMediaPublishing.com is available. Well... it looks like someone has it. Bummer. We are going to either change the ProMediaPublishing part of the domain or choose something other than .com.



Step 4

In this case, we changed the .com to a .net and voila! The domain is now available. Is there any difference? Technically no.. but for brand purposes yes. In this tutorial we will stick with .net and move on. The branding isues will be discussed in further articles. Go ahead and click the "Continue to Registration" button.



Step 5

Next, GoDaddy is asking us to login to our account.  There are two sections below.  If you already have an account, use the section on the left.  If you need an account, go ahead and fill out the required information, then hit the "Next" button.



Step 6

As we progress through the checkout process, GoDaddy is suggesting we make additional purchases we do not need.  For example, we only need to register the domain for 1 year, not 2, 3, 5, or 10.  Just make sure you have 1 year selected from the drop down box.



Step 7

Again, more items we really do not need.  Unless, you would like your name protected when someone does a WHOIS lookup.  People are able to view the domain registration information, quite easily.  If you would like to protect your name and address, go ahead and choose Privacy with Business Registration.  This separates your personal information and only promotes your business information.



Step 8

Ok Godaddy... we get the point. You really would like us to buy additional items. But, we are here for a domain and an domain only. A few big red X's have been added to illustrate that we can bypass these items.



Step 9

Here we are at another confirmation page for the checkout process. Once again, Godaddy makes it confusing with all sorts of add on options. The only things we really need is to make sure the domain name is correct and we are registering for one year only. Then we can hit the green "Continue to Checkout" button.



Step 10 -- Final Step

If you made it this far... congratulations on making it through the gaunlet of GoDaddy cross selling. We are finally at the final step before our debit or credit card is charged for the registration of our domain. The main thing is to make sure your domain is spelled correctly, read the terms and check that... then click the "Place Order Now" button. This will finalize your order and bring you to the order confirmation page.



Closing

If you have made it through all the steps.. then your domain will be on its way. It usually takes a few minutes... 5 or 10, for the domain to show up in your personal account. If this is your first domain registration.. congratulations! In future articles we will discuss strategic uses of your domain and cover the technical aspects of how to manage your domain

Until next time, please leave a comment if there are any questions. Thanks for visiting Pro Media Publishing!