Do you plan on pursuing a new venture or expanding your business presence? If so, investing in a domain name can be helpful. It provides a unique identity, giving your business a more professional look. Moreover, owning a domain helps create brand awareness, protect trademarks and copyrights, build credibility, and improve a brand’s position on a search engine. But before purchasing a domain, you must know about the process, costs, companies, and services they offer.

Registration steps
If you are planning to buy a domain, the registration steps are usually straightforward.

The first step is to pick a domain name for the brand. Usually, this is the same as the name of your business, which helps you build brand identity.
Check for domain availability using the free tool offered by most registrars and hosting services.
Once you have verified that a domain is available, choose a company (registrar) that sells domain names directly or through a web-hosting service. Once you purchase the domain, it becomes a registered domain name system (DNS) for your business.
Following the purchase, the registrar or web-hosting company will reserve and register domain names on your behalf. It may take up to 48 hours before the domain works at its full potential.
Domain registrations usually need to be renewed monthly or annually based on the type of plan you pick. Therefore, in order to keep your domain active, ensure that you pay for it at the end of the term. Some domain providers usually automatically renew the plan at the end of the term.

Top domain providers

NameCheap
The domain name registrar is popular for offering a range of services at affordable prices. Therefore, the provider is the ideal choice for small businesses and individuals. A couple of domain registration services that come with NameCheap include privacy protection, two-factor authentication (2FA), and SSL certificates, which help protect the websites and other personal information from cyber threats. You could also go for the free, two-month email trial, which includes one mailbox and 5GB for emails. Meanwhile, the domain registrar offers hosting plans starting lower than $5 a month.

GoDaddy
Apart from domain registration, GoDaddy offers services such as web hosting, a website builder, and email marketing tools. Their domains are easy to set up, allow real-time monitoring, and include tools to help forward your domains to existing websites, making it one of the top domain registration companies. The registrar offers a Starter Domain Bundle that costs about $3 per month when billed annually. For the price, you get a “.com” domain, professional email, complete domain protection, and the standard version of GoDaddy Studio.

BlueHost
The domain registration plans from Bluehost start at about $3 per month. For the cost, the provider offers features including one blog or website, a free CDN, a free domain and SSL for the first year, and 10 GB SSD storage. You will also gain access to custom WordPress themes. Bluehost also includes a domain manager in all their plans, which makes it easy to transfer, update, manage, and purchase domains under a single hub. Real-time statistics are other benefits that come with BlueHost’s domain services.