Everybody needs a website nowadays. This is the virtual replacement of a shop that can make real money for you. Even if you are not a full fledged business, you can use the website as your Curriculum Vitae. For example photographers, designers or writers can showcase their creative work virtually so that everyone can access it from anywhere in the world. Now, the first stage of building a website is registering the domain name. While it is a simple process, you must keep a few points in mind while doing so.

Choosing a hosting company:
Domain registration means registering your website name with a web hosting company. There are many such companies for this purpose and you can easily find them online. But make sure that you choose a reputed one and do not fall for cheap or free deals.

Deciding website name:
Now, before registering, you will have to check if the chosen name is available or not. If someone else has already registered that name, you will not be able to get that again. In such a case, you will have to come up with an alternative name. So, take your time deciding your name and check if it is available.

Deciding website extension:
Every website address ends with an extension. There are different types of extensions like .com for commercial purposes, .org for non-profit and . edu for educational sites. There are country specific domains too such as .uk for UK, .de for Germany or .in for India etc. Choose what suits you the best.

Duration of Registration:
You can register it for a year and then renew it later when the time comes. But it may be a better idea to register it for a few years at one time if you can afford that. You can get some bulk deals for website domain registration in that case but more importantly, the search engines find the websites with a longer registration periods more trustworthy. So, it may help you in your search engine optimization (SEO) initiatives in the future.