A lot of business owners get really confused when it comes to the technical part of their online presence. That’s why we’ve decided to throw some light on one of the most popular terms, connected with your company’s website – the domain name.

First, let’s see what a domain name is (and what it isn’t). The domain name is the address to your website (i.e. www.thisisadomain.com). Think of it as the address of your office.

As you can see, it consists of 2 different parts:

thisisadomain – the actual domain name (the name of your company/brand, etc).
.com – the top level domain (you must be familiar with the most famous top level domains like .com, .org, .net, etc).

Is buying a domain name a one-time purchase?
No. A lot of business owners think that buying a domain name is a one-time purchase. This cannot be farther from the truth. After you purchase a domain, you have to renew it on a yearly basis. That’s why it is really very important to use your primary email address when registering your domain name and make sure you have access to it.

Can I use any email to register a domain name for my business?
No. When in search of a domain for their business, business owners often visit a site, enter a credit card and use an email like @hotmail.com. Everything is good until it comes up for renewal the next year and they no longer use that @hotmail.com address which means they don’t get the renewal notice and suddenly they lose their website when the domain expires or worse it expires and their competition registers it!

Can I have a member of my team or someone else register the domain name for me?
Yes and No. It depends on the details they will use. If they use your primary email address and let you choose the login name and password, then that’s OK. If they use their own email and login details to register your domain name, though, it’s as if you’ve given them the keys to your own home. Or, even worse, you’ve made them owners of your home!

Should I register a country domain name for my business?
Yes. Registering a Country Domain Name has a lot of advantages you should consider, the most important of which is preventing your competition from registering the .ca/.us name of your .com name for example.
Let’s say you own www.company.com and are getting lots of traffic to your website. One day your competition opens up and discovers the domain name www.company.ca is available. In minutes, they can purchase and own the domain! Suddenly they can compete with you in Google and redirect traffic to their business. You don’t want this to happen, do you?

So, what are the most important things to remember when buying a domain name for your business?
1. Do it yourself (or let a trusted person do it using your login details and email)
2. Use your primary email.
3. Remember the website you’ve bought the domain name from.
4. Remember your username and password for this website.
5. If you ever change your email address, log in to the website you’ve bought the domain name from and change your email with the new one.

The good news? With TCP, you won’t have to worry about renewing your domain name at all! Once you give us access to the domain(s) you’ve purchased, we take care of all the tedious details. We will register it and renew it regularly, so you don’t have to worry about these specific technical aspects. Thus, you’ll have more time (and energy) to focus on what really matters – your business!