Start with your domain name

“A thousand mile journey begins with one step.” - Chinese Proverb

If you are gonna begin your web journey anywhere, let this be your first step: register your name as a domain name.

The domain name or url is this thing - http://www.yournamehere.com

When you set up a website you need three things -

- a domain name

- a web hosting service

- the designed webpages

Most people organize to get all these things at once. But you don’t have to.

Even if you are not yet ready to set up a website or a blog, you should get your domain name now. Get the name you want before someone else does. A .com domain name costs less than $10 per year. That’s peanuts, so there’s no reason to delay doing it.

Do this:

1. Skip over to www.GoDaddy.com and type your name in the domain name search form box. Don’t add spaces. I would type staceyapeitos .

2. Click the GO button

3. What’s the result? Is your name available as a .com name? If so, REGISTER IT! (And don’t feel you have to sign up for the extra stuff they try to sell you as you step through the registration process, especially the web hosting. There are better hosting services out there.)

As an artist, your name is a promotional asset. People will search for your name on the internet. There is a common expectation that artists and craftspeople, writers, musicians, experts, coaches, consultants … will have their names registered as .com domain names.

If you trade under a business name, register it, too. Yes, you can have more than one domain name - fancy that! You can even have multiple domain names pointed at the same website or blog.

One of my clients makes art and runs artist retreats. She has an artist website registered under her art  business name. There is a section of the site devoted to her retreats. I suggested she register three new domain names: Her own name and the names of both of her retreats. She can use a process called domain forwarding to point her own name at the homepage of her art business site. And she can point the domain names for her retreats at the appropriate retreat pages within her website.

When this artist promotes one of her retreats, she can provide that retreat’s domain name. This makes the event appear more professional. It is also easier for customers to remember the retreat name than the artist’s business name.

Through a trick known as masking you can even hide the true url name of the pages from the viewer so that the forwarded domain name is shown when they arrive at your website. You can set all this up through your domain name management panel at Go-Daddy or other domain registrar site.

For my Australian readers who are wondering about getting a .com.au name, that’s fine,  if you feel your marketplace is exclusively Australia. You have to register through an Australian domain registrar though, and the minimum registration period is two years. Don’t pay more than AU$40 for a two-year period! If you hurry over to www.SmartyHost.com.au right now you can take advantage of their November special and get domain registration at just $12.99 per year. Bargain!