Booking a domain name

A domain name is the address of your office on the web. Fast becoming the preferred touch point by external entities interested in your business, companies should explore more & more possibilities of e-enabling business processes. It is fast & cost effective for example to use your website to complement your recruitment process or extend your customer service center to the web.

Sadly, finding a domain name registrar usually does not involve the kind of scrutiny that goes in for choosing a host or a designer for your website. Privatisation of domain name registration has brought in healthy competition as in reduced prices, great offers, but above all (with due respect to Network Solutions), better customer service. Here are some important considerations when you are looking out for a domain registrar:

1. Cost & ease of maintenance, like changes to the whois database

2. Security considerations

3. Customer service, like reminders for renewing the domain

4. Ease of use for subsequent domain name registrations

Dos & Donts for booking a domain

1. Brainstorm on the domain name or use softwares or websites that can recommend domains that are available. You will be surprised to find that some very good domains are up for grabs. A large percentage of domains do not get renewed at all. Do actually check out all the options for availability.

2. If you envisage a largely search engine driven traffic to your site, try & include a couple of keywords in your domain name. Separate keywords by a hyphen. For example, if you are booking a domain for Acme, exporter of PVC pipes, a good domain name would be www.acme-pvc.com or www.acme-pvc-pipes.com.

3. Decide on a hosting provider in advance & keep the primary & secondary domain name servers & their IP addresses handy while booking.

4. Try & use a permanent email address. It could be @ one of your other domain names or a free email service. Do not use your ISP's email id if you switch ISPs frequently or plan to switch in the future. Most registrars validate the user by default by communicating to the email address provided during registration. If you stop using the particular email address, reminders to renew your domain or confirmations for requests to modify whois information may not reach you.

5. The admin contact for a domain name is the sole authority for the particular domain. Nominate someone inside your organization & not someone from the hosting provider or website designing company. Take care to prevent misuse or unauthorized access to the email address you provide for the admin contact.

Advertise the domain

Having a corporate website in itself does not serve any purpose. Optimise it for search engines. Use it at every available opportunity to test the new medium for effectiveness. Above all, advertise the website URL. It's your address on the web.

1. Print the URL in all corporate stationery including visiting cards, letterheads & outbound communications.

2. Optimse your website for search engines. They are a powerful example of pull marketing. It is an absolute necessity if you are in a position to service clients internationally &/or the decision making process for patronizing your products/services involves a lot of information gathering

3. Courteously direct customers, suppliers, investors & anybody else interested in your organization to the website when they communicate with you requesting information. Of course, you have to ensure that the information is actually available o the website.

4. All official email communication should be @ your domain name. Companies do use an ISP provided temporary id when the media exposure is large, like advertisements for a "limited time offer" and a large volume of mails are expected to pour in long after the 'event'. This does not seem to be a valid reasoning. It is always useful to have an opt-in list of people seeking information from your company. These could be potential customers, suppliers & so on. Using a permanent email is keeping a permanent communication avenue open with them.

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