domain names :: Thinking Home Business | Practical Tips For People Who Work From Home

When you have been blogging for a long time and had to find your way through the intricacies of various blogging tools and related matters such as how to set up a blog in the first place, it’s easy to forget just how mysterious and confusing it all seemed at the beginning.

Getting the domain name you want

One of the most basic things, especially if you are going to self-host your blog, is to get the domain name or web address you want. By “self-host” I mean you locate it on a web hosting service of your choice – unlike using a hosted service like Blogger.com or WordPress.com (different from WordPress.org).

I can sense another blog post coming up, about web/blog hosting services, but here I just want to focus on the nuts and bolts of:

checking to see if the domain name you want is available
when you find one you want and it is available, registering it.

So this is a Blogging 101 post (we all had to start somewhere and when you are starting out at anything isn’t it annoying when people assume you know certain things, even when there is no serious reason why you should? ).

I’ve made a little “guided tour” video as below, using the domain name hosting service, Namecheap. It’s nice that the service lives up to the brand name, although there may be others that will charge even less than Namecheap, at least for some domain configurations. Namecheap is the main domain hosting service we use and we are happy with it which is why we recommend it. There is an affiliate program, which can help defray your domain hosting costs (link is in the footer of the Namecheap homepage).

Registering your domain name

The signup process is pretty straightforward, and hopefully the video illustrates the process sufficiently.

There is unfortunately a bit of a hum on the soundtrack, but if you turn your sound down and remember it is only a short video, I think you’ll find it bearable. Please let me know if it is not and I’ll look to finding time to make another and replace the one here.

My intention is to follow up with some related “setting up” posts, including one on getting your hosting service set up and one on installing a blog.

I welcome any questions about setting up domain names, using hosting services and installing blogs. I’ll do my best to answer helpfully.

Yard Sale sign

Picture by JMGRIFFIN via stock.xchang

We announced a couple of days ago that part of the plan to help Suzie get to Vancouver in June was to sell some web domains.

In the process we found that a couple of actual sites we had set up had, without any care or tendering, much less blogging, on our part, grown each a Google Page Rank of 2. Nothing to get too excited about, but a bit of a kick start for anyone interested in those particular domains.

Our motto for this sale truly is No Reasonable Offer Refused. In fact we have already sold a couple of sites, so quickly we wondered whether we had set the prices too low. Never mind.

Nearly all of the names below were chosen after a fair bit of deliberation and some with the benefit of research into popular niches. The exception is the one we misspelled – which should not be too hard to spot: we suspect we might be stuck with that one, but who knows?

So, folks, check ‘em out and make us an offer.

PayPal is the payment mode.

DOMAINS FOR SALE

(Update: May 9, 2009) This list of domains was posted almost a year ago. Some of the domains sold then, a couple we let lapse and a couple we had second thoughts about selling and decided to hang onto. The list below is marked up accordingly – domains with the names showing strikethrough are no longer available for sale.)

(Latest Update: April 6, 2010)

3CIRCLESUCCESS.COM

This domain was bought to help promote a service using a 3 circle Venn diagram, a great tool for explaining complex concepts simply and in a visually compelling way. And we all want success!

ABUNDANCEDROPS.COM

A good name for anyone promoting any sort of health product with drops in hit – or perhaps skydivers.

BLOGGERSUCCESS.COM

There are new people taking up blogging every day, many lured by stories of bloggers achieving financial success with or through their blogs. Excellent name for someone wanting to tap that market.

~~BEPAIDTODRINKWATER.COM~~ SOLD

Listed just to show that they are going out the door!

BODYFATLOSSFORLIFE.COM

Now is this a good name for anyone with a fatloss program, product, regime or formula, or what?

DECLUTTERYOURGARAGE.COM

Check this one out for a niche – who, apart from all the born tidiness freaks who never acquire clutter, wouldn’t like to have a decluttered garage?

~~DISCOVERGOLDCOAST.COM~~ SOLD

Great name for a travel site focused on the Australian Gold Coast travel mecca, or one of the many other Gold Coasts around the world.

GOFLHANDICAPSECRETS.COM

Ugly duckling – note the spelling – good price for a good home.

GOVBLOGGING.COM (we let this lapse – someone else has registered it)

A good name for anyone looking at the growth in blogging in the government sector, both by government agencies and about government – see below: blog site has PR2

~~MAKEMONEYWITHWATER.COM~~ SOLD

Another one that has already been sold – hmm, maybe we should have asked for more?

ONTHENETDATING.COM

Online dating has grown up: a niche with plenty of scope for expansion – and sub-niches, senior dating (don’t laugh, they’ve got the money and the time), stamp collector dating, left hand tennis player dating……

PROSPERITYTRAIN.COM

Great domain for anything to do with wealth creation, making money online etc

RSSFORPROFIT.COM

We know that not everyone understands syndication/RSS (why else all those “What’s RSS?” links?) and of those who do understand a lot don’t use it. We bought this because we saw the potential, which we believe is still there. A search on RSS for Profit just now returned 12.4 million results.

SIMPLEONLINESPONSORING.COM

This is a good name for tapping into the network marketing crowd: a lot of them who are successful (or not?) in offline sponsoring are clueless about online sponsoring but curious about how to do it and the savvier ones want to learn fast.

~~STARTBLOGGINGTODAY.COM~~ SOLD

There are plenty of people who would like to blog but are fearful of what they have to learn. Bloggers know that the best way is to start. You could use this domain – and (see below) the already operating blog (PR2) to build an information resource or even a membership site.

STOPYOURHEARTATTACK.COM

Buying this domain was inspired by the phenomenal success of the stopyourdivorce.com site and by the fact that more and more Baby Boomers are less than excited about the idea of joining the angelic choirs (or other next life groups) any time soon. We just never got around to using it.

SUPERAFFILIATEGOLD.COM

Everyone in the affiliate business who is not a super affiliate must surely dream of becoming one some day and winning the gold that goes with that.

THEHOMEBUSINESSGUY.COM

Home based business is a growth area if ever there was one, but a lot of people do not know how to set up such a business or how to keep it running and make it profitable. As Des wrote in this post:

I think the name is a great potential brand for someone who works from home, is passionate about the concept and is already, or would like to position themselves as, an expert on establishing and building a business from home.

DOMAINS WITH SITES FOR SALE

GOVBLOGGING.COM

This doesn’t have a lot of posts, but even so, it has a Google Page Rank of 2.

~~STARTBLOGGINGTODAY.COM/BLOG~~

As with govblogging.com, this site has not been getting any attention by us but has managed to get itself a Page Rank of 2 – imagine what it could get if someone was actually posting to it on a regular basis!

TO MAKE AN OFFER (we are moving fast, might be first in best dressed, so don’t procrastinate) or get more info, please use the Contact page.

Or email Des at this address: gmail signature image (this is a spam-cheating, non-clickable email image – you can get your own free email graphic here).