How can you give a good start?
You might get cool ideas while you are walking around, just before going to bed or any minute or so. If you think of starting a blog, forum or website on any of that cool topic, first thing you should do is to buy the best available domain name.
Why this blog itself does not have a custom domain name?
It is simply because I did not buy the domain name before I start this blog. After sometimes it will be too late to transfer it to another domain name as it will loose Google Page Rank, Might loose inbound links and you have to change all the in bound links from other websites. Currently I am experimenting the best way to change this Blogger domain to a custom domain with minimum bad impact on the blog. It will be interesting post in future but for anyone who is going to start blogging I strongly recommend just buy the domain name as soon as you think you have got a cool idea for a website.
Why you should buy a domain name first?
I have pointed out in several posts, buying a domain is a small investment which might end up as a big investment.
You need to spend less than $10.00 for a domain name for the year. That can be saved from many ways which I am not going to talked about here.
You will have a proper identity on internet. This is quite important when it comes to internet world. After having a domain name you will have a email address with your name and your domain name which will looks like myname@mydomain.com. People will trust and take you seriously when they get an email from such an email address. Why? Anyone can create a email account with Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo or any other free email account. Plus multiple accounts can be created under different identity. With a custom domain only domain owner or authorised person can create a email account with that domain.
Where should I buy the domain name? Is it really important?
Yes. It is really important to select a domain registrar that suite for your requirements. First I thought the same. Why not buy it from anyone but later I found out service you are going to get will depend on place you buy the domain.
Example I am using the Blogger as the blogging platform and when it comes to configuring with custom domain, email account or any other service it required me to add CNAME records. With my previous domain name registrar could not provide that facility unless I purchase a shared server from them and direct my domain name to that server. But you are not required to do so if you buy it from a recommended company by Blogger. It can save up $10 - $20 dollars per month. If you are planning to use Blogger account for your blog following will be the preferred list of domain registrar
GoDaddy.com
ix web hosting
1and1
EveryDNS.net
Yahoo!SmallBusiness
No-IP
DNS Park
Also Blogger Help provide settings for each of them separately so no need to understand the complicated terms and theories.
What would be the worst case of buying a domain?
I cannot think of any worst case in buying a domain name. If your idea did not work out and you are too lazy to do any thing with the domain name maximum you will loose will be $10.00. Remember to cancel Auto renew (in most cases it is the default) so it will expired. However, if you cannot afford to loose $10.00 you can simply park your domain and recover the cost.
If I look back you need to have a cool idea (Idea which you think it is cool and you think you can work around it and doesn't matter what others think) and buying the best suite, available domain name is a good start for creating a cool website or a blog.
So far you spend $10.00 per year and saves $10.00 - $20.00 per month.
