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Remember how long it took you to find the perfect domain for your business or personal website? While the process of registering a domain is often quick, coming up with a strong domain takes creativity and research. Once acquired, it’s common to have the thought of, “I have a domain now what?” In this blog, we’ll be going through the various answers to this question so you have some direction for your business or domain. Let’s cover what to do after you purchase a domain name.
1. Identify the Purpose
The next step after buying a domain name is identifying the main purpose of your domain name as this will help provide direction after your acquisition. While domain names have a variety of uses, you’ll need to determine what works best for your online objectives. Some of the reasons for acquiring a domain can include:
- Using a domain to build your website (such as ecommerce, blogging, news content, wiki content, branding and more).
- Using a domain for investing purposes as any domain could become valuable.
- Using a domain for advertising purposes.
- Using a domain for social media marketing.
- Using a domain to have a branded email address.
- Using a domain to start building domain authority to resell after developing value
There are endless possibilities on what the purpose of your domain can be. Identifying your online objective and utilizing your domain will help guide your next steps. For this blog, we’ll be focusing on using your domain to build your website.
2. Assembling your Website
After you establish the purpose of your website, it’s time to determine how to approach building your website after buying a domain name. The two options an individual could take are:
- Building your custom website which is more suitable for individuals with web development expertise or access to a web development team.
- Using a website builder service/platform through a plan at a company that bundles multiple web hosting services together.
This could branch out even further to shared hosting and dedicated hosting depending on what kind of website builder meets your needs.
Option 1
If you have prior knowledge as a web developer or access to a web development team, it could be worth building your custom website. This option is often more time-consuming as it involves building a website from scratch. The benefits come from the freedom to create your website to meet your exact development needs. This option has many challenges, as it does take a lot of effort, time and development expertise to complete a full website build.
Option 2
The other option is utilizing a service that bundles domains, website builder, and built-in hosting all together in one platform. Some of those benefits include a discounted plan, ease of connecting these three items, and one central location that will make any challenges that occur more streamlined.
When choosing the best option multiple factors could affect your decision when choosing a website builder. How much freedom do you want to have when designing your website? Are you a beginner who wants to use an intuitive website builder that’s simple to use or an expert who has years of experience building a website from scratch? The answers to these questions can help you decide the best path to take before building your website.
An extremely crucial step after choosing a domain and assembling your website is to connect your domain to your website through Domain Name System (DNS) settings. This is an important step to allow visitors to access your website. A few simple steps that need to be taken:
- Go into your domain registrar account
- Locate where you manage the DNS, often found wherever your domain is located
- Find the settings to access and change the name server for your domain
- Update the name server to the website hosting provider’s name server
- Update your name servers
- Hit save and verify that the connection has been made
If your website expertise is somewhere in the middle it could be valuable to check out Dynadot’s Website Builder. It’s an easy-to-use tool where you don’t have to be a website-building expert but it also gives the right amount of freedom to bring your creativity to your website. You can also register your domain here to make the whole process much easier.
3. Secure your Website
You may have put in days, weeks and maybe even months to ensure everything is perfect with your website, and the next step is ensuring it is secure for your audience. An unsecured website can lead to negative consequences for your website and brand, such as deterring users from visiting the website, tarnishing the reputation of the domain or brand, and even potentially being the root cause of hacking or cyber thief.
What should you do now that you have your domain and website? It’s time to be proactive by setting up proper security measures.
One of the most important components to protecting your website, domain, and website visitors is getting an SSL certificate. An SSL certificate ensures the customer data is safe (indicated by the ‘s’ in ‘https’ in your URL). When users see “https” in front of your URL they know the website owner has taken extra measures towards website safety.
Another way to indirectly protect your website is by adding layers of protection to your account that resides with your registrar or web hosting through security keys, two-factor authentication or account verification locks to prevent unwanted access to your accounts. This will dissuade account hackers from accessing your accounts which could result in the website being compromised. These customized security options to protect your website can be found at Dynadot.
It’s important to have a backup plan when your website suddenly experiences severe problems. A website backup can fully restore a website to its original place so you don’t have to start from scratch. It’s easy to forget but crucial as a last resort safety net for anything that happens on your website, so investigate whether this is an option for your website builder or make sure to back up your custom-built website.
An essential safety measure more specifically for businesses is to ensure that your business is registered and trademarked. This offers external legal protection from people who want to replicate or steal your business’ identity.
4. Get a Branded Email Address for your Business
Creating a branded email address with your domain that represents your company creates professionalism while you conduct email communication. A branded email address also builds trust and credibility that the email account is reaching your brand when your audience or customers try to contact you. Depending on how big the business is it could be beneficial to have branded email addresses for [email protected] or [email protected].
5. Acquire Social Media Accounts
Secure social media accounts that are relevant to your audience and promotional needs, while creating accounts on as many platforms as possible. Later down the road, it could be useful to have these social media platforms readily available. Some of the most popular recommended social media platforms are Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Start building your brand early through social accounts that align with your brand name, creating stronger brand recognition. Adding a short description to your profile can go a long way for users who may stumble upon your profile and would like to learn more.
6. Verify Website with Google Search Console and Measure Results through Website Analytics
It’s imperative to find tools that will support website owners to determine how they can improve their website and gain more traffic. This section will cover tools that will enhance your website’s performance by identifying which pages are getting the most/least clicks, have certain errors, loading slower than average, causing a poor user experience and more. Certain tools will help give you a competitive edge when it comes to making the best decisions for your website.
Google Search Console is one of these tools. Making sure to verify your website through Google Search Console helps make it easy for Google to find your website and the search engine to index it. This helpful tool also keeps track of the status of each page on your website which can help identify and fix problems.
A characteristic that many successful website owners have is the ability to measure the website’s results and take action accordingly to bring in the most traffic. Measuring results using a handy tool like Google Analytics or any other wide range of analytic tracking platforms is critical. Implement Google Analytics into your domain to be able to make the most accurate and calculated decision about how to improve your website’s online presence.
7. Promote your Website
Why am I getting barely any traffic even though I’ve put so much work into building a killer website? Chances are no one knows about you, your brand, your company or your products/services. Properly promoting your website to help you increase visibility and build your online presence among your target audience is key to growth.
When it comes to promoting your website there are several methods depending on where your target audience consumes content. Some of the most common ways to promote your website is through:
- Social Media Marketing: This could be promoting your website through Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok or other social platforms. The best way to spread your brand’s awareness is no doubt going to be through social media marketing with 4.8 billion users on social media worldwide.
- Email Marketing: This method is beneficial if you already have a customer email list. It can be used to promote your new website to previous customers and encourage them to engage with your brand and website.
- Advertising networks: Incorporating Google Ads or other advertising platforms to promote and develop brand awareness will allow consumers to discover your new website through other relevant websites.
It’s time to invest in your website’s online presence and measure feasible growth with promotions.
8. Hire Professionals
All these steps require time, knowledge, and effort that can be challenging to manage. It may be best to hire someone to assist with completing tasks more efficiently and at a higher quality. While most domains offer tools and support to assist throughout the process, it is beneficial to proactively address tasks while creating and maintaining your online presence to ensure the success of your website. Consider asking for professional help so you can shift your focus on parts of the website that need more attention.
There are inexpensive freelancer websites like Fiverr, Upwork and other websites that can help you find the right talent for your website. Don’t be afraid to reach out to get the best for your website and domain.
Recap
- Identify the Purpose
- Find a Website Builder
- Secure your Website
- Get a Branded Email Address for your Business
- Acquire Social Media Accounts
- Verify Website with Google Search Console and Measure Results through website analytics
- Promote your Website
- Hire Professionals
It’s important to ask yourself after purchasing a domain name, “I have a domain now what?”. The endless steps and options can be daunting at first but once you take one step at a time to reach your goal it will be less overwhelming. After purchasing a domain, invest the right amount of time and money towards your website to become a successful website owner.
