What is A Domain?

Quite simply a domain is the address of your website, my domain is www.duncanmaund.com.

Every website has to have a domain, and every domain has to be hosted.

However, you can still buy a domain and not have a website, but purchase a domain to have professional sounding emails.  For example you may have a carpentry business called John Smith Pro Kitchen Designer and your email on the back of your van is johnsmith@aol.com – would it not be better to have enquiries@johnsmithprokitchens.com – it is just an example of sounding more professional.

A domain has many uses:

Buy a domain for professional emails.
Buy a domain for your website and your emails.
Buy a domain and park it – what’s this?
Buy a domain and have a holding page – what is this?

Parking a domain

You might have thought of a great idea for a website, but have not got time to create a website for it, so you can check to see if the domain is available and then buy it or later on down the line create a website for it or you could just choose to keep it hidden away or you could make some money out of it by parking it.  A lot of business offer affiliate schemes or holding pages to advertise their own products – this is known as parking.

Holding Page

You might have a domain that you use for your email, and it is the name of your company but you have never bothered with a website, well this is where a holding page comes into play.  A holding page is a one page design, it is very similar to an online business card – it explains what it is you do, what services you offer, where you are based, your contact details and can even have an enquiry form or email subscribe for potetntial customers – I can even optimise these pages for the search engines so you can be found!

Choosing the right domain

If you decide to use me for your website – I will advise you on the best name for your business, domains should be punchy and short but not always, sometimes by having keywords associated in the domain for your business can be good.  However like my website, I chose to use my name but can be found by a variety of keywords that I have chosen, so you do not always have to choose a domain that people will find, especially if you use a website marketeer like myself.