Domain registration is the first step (usually) to getting your website into production. Although some websites charge as much as $50 for domain registration, there are a few services that sell domains to you for as little as $8. Here are a few services which always has good deals on domain registration

• NameCheap
• Yahoo! Domains
• GoDadddy

It is also very important to remember that once you’ve registered your domain, you must then sign up for web hosting, and your web host is going to require you to modify a DNS record—which can be very difficult for beginners. For that reason, if you’re ready to get started, I recommend bundling your domain name and web hosting together.

It is also important to remember that although you might find cheap hosting, they may get you with extra bandwidth costs, extra web space costs, etc. Bandwidth is very expensive and it is up to the amount of traffic your website gets to determine the amount of bandwidth you need. Here is a freebie that I use to determine the amount of bandwidth I need. Diva’s After Dark, the website we’ve been building together, only requires about 10GB’s of bandwidth per year. In this case, the 2,000GB’s of bandwidth my web host gives me annually as a standard is more than enough for a small website like this.

Here are a few web hosts that bundle domain names into their hosting plan. Also, I only selected web hosts that offer a wide variety of services—so if you grow in the future, your web host will grow with you. The two, below, are some of the most popular hosting packages on the market today.

Design Secret

Bandwidth Calculator – A great tool that I use to determine how much bandwidth I need.

Recommended Hosting Companies

I’m from a school of thought that you don’t have to pay a lot to get a lot. I have about 100 websites hosted with great hosts around the world and I’d love to share with you some of my favorites.

• The first host that I am proud to share with you is Host Monster. I’ve actually worked out a deal with Host Monster (if you buy via my URL here) where you can host UNLIMITED domains from one account, over 600GB of space, over 6000GB of bandwidth, hundreds of e-mail addresses, and MySQL databases for only $5.95 per month. It’s really an awesome deal when you think about it. I love this service so much that I am hosting many of my websites (including this one) through this service.
• Also, IX Web Hosting – Very affordable ISP, where their cheapest plan is around $6 per month—including the domain name, plenty of space, and plenty of bandwidth. There a sweet deal, but definitely not as sweet as the host listed above.
• IPowerWeb, although I only have a little experience when them (one website) is able to work out a special deal as well. If you buy through this URL, you get the whole package for only $4.95 per month). Even more affordable ISP, also about $7 per month—including domain name, plenty of space, and bandwidth. They also give a Google Adwords (advertising) credit and a Yahoo (advertising) credit on some plans.

Buying a domain name and web hosting can be done bundled together or separately. Sometimes, you can get a better deal if you purchase the products bundled together. However, if you were only really interested in making a small investment to start, I would recommend securing your domain name first and signing up for web hosting separately at a later time. That way you only have to invest around $10 in your website, and pay the rest when you’re ready to launch your website.Buying a domain name is pretty easy, but there are some things you should know. You need to make sure that your domain name is catchy so that your visitors will remember it. It is also important, for Search Engine Optimization purposes, to include your highest incoming traffic keywords in your domain title. So, if you have a website devoted to learning piano, “learnpiano.com” might be a great domain name for you. Isn’t that so much more relevant than “cindysmusiclessons.com”Here is a list of great domain name registrars:

• www.namecheap.com (best deal overall)
• www.godaddy.com (second best deal)
• domains.yahoo.com (third best deal)

There is a lot involved in the web hosting aspect. You need to choose a web host that is going to fulfill your needs. If you were a Microsoft ASP.NET developer (which I’m going to assume you probably are not, but many of my customers are developers wanting to get a better grasp for design and marketing), you would need a web server that would support that. For purposes of this course, you will most likely be okay with the following web hosts:

• www.hostmonster.com (my personal favorite and all around best deal)
• www.ipowerweb.com (another affordable web host)
• www.godaddy.com (great web hosting provider as well)

Lastly, you need to make sure that you have a web design in mind that is going to make you money. Take a look at your competitors website and draw your ideas out on paper. If your competitors are making money off of a specific layout or format, don’t reinvent the wheel-go for it! It will cost you nothing and it’s the best time saver you’ll find in the web design business!