How to buy a domain name
So you want to buy a domain name? It’s really not that hard. The hardest part is finding a name that is available that someone didn’t already think of. Here are some pointers when looking for a domain name for your website or custom email. Let’s assume you have a godaddy account but if you don’t it’s really easy to sign up during the checkout process. I will point that out during the checkout.
Step 1. Find your domain name
Keep it short!
I’m pretty sure that all of the 2 or 3 letter domains are more than likely taken but the closest you can get to that is good for a number of reasons.
Shorter domains = shorter email address
That seems like not too big of a deal but for me aside from just taking too long to type out (maybe I’m lazy ha!), having a short domain can help when it comes to design. We design lots of flyers, business cards and other designs where font has to be very small to fit. I could potentially go into an entire new blog post about domain names so I’ll keep that part a little short for now.
Once you find the perfect domain name that is available, here is what you do.
Step 2. Add domain to shopping cart
Click on the “Add to Cart” button to get taken to the first of a coupleĀ upsell spots.
First you will see three options. You can upgrade your domain and purchase protection but personally this isn’t something I have ever needed. When I buy domain names I like to get them as cheap as possible. For me, I choose the “No Thanks” radio option which doesn’t increase the price of your yearly renewal cost.
In this next section make sure to uncheck the box to “Start your website for FREE”. This sounds great and all but we never recommend site-builders. Just like Wix, or Weebly, Godaddy’s Site-builder is something you will eventually have to upgrade from which means have rebuilt from the ground up. Having a website built on your own server is always going to be the best bet. Of course we build websites and would be happy to give you a quote on building your next dream website. Aside from that, if you forget to cancel your free trial you might get automatically billed for something you may not even use. I have had this happen before when I build websites myself. Now I always remember to uncheck the box. FREE isn’t always a good idea.
In the next section you will see options for email but again here we usually keep it as defaulted to say “No Thanks”.
Click on Continue to Cart button.
Here you will be prompted to either sign in or you can create a new account.
Choose your payment source (or enter one if this is your first time)
Hint: Godaddy will try and get you to purchase 3 or sometimes 5 years in advance! Below where you see your domain name (see photo) there is a drop down where you can pick the number of years you want to purchase the domain for. I personally always pick just 1 year but if you have the means to purchase multiple years it will save you a possible headache later down the road. Many businesses and organizations fizzle away after the first year and for that reason I keep it to 1 year.
If this is your first domain purchase I strongly suggest finding a GoDaddy coupon code. I remember way back when I was able to buy a domain name for $0.99. Those were the days! Now you have to get lucky to find a coupon for existing users. Luckily the standard pricing is just around $11.99 plus taxes for the first year without a coupon.
Click this link if you are a first time godaddy domain customer…. š¤
Once you enter any coupon codes go ahead and click on “Complete Purchase” and that’s it! You now own a domain name. From here you can forward to your website or social media page, or set your nameservers to point to URGrafix if we are going to be building your website for you.
Thanks for reading and let us know if you have any questions in the comments or feel free to email jess directly at jess.urgrafix@gmail.com.
