How to Register for a Domain Name and Build your Site
on 21 July 2022, by Bogdan, in Blog, WordPress, FREE, Guides
by Bogdan
Registering for a domain is the first step to taking your website online. Your site’s visitors identify your website from the address bar of their browsers using your domain. This is why it is vital to get the right domain for your website whether you’ve built one from scratch or you’re using content management systems like WordPress.
GoDaddy's hosting offerings include one for WordPress, arguably the best content management system in the world. Combining GoDaddy and WordPress allows you to harvest the best of both worlds to effortlessly build a reliable and appealing website for you and your visitors. In this post, we’ll walk you through a step-by-step process of how you can create a WordPress website with GoDaddy, with no steps skipped.
In this post, we'll show you how to build a website with GoDaddy. Jump to each section by clicking the links below:
What is a domain name?
Every website on the internet today has an address (the IP address) that points to its location. The IP address comprises a series of numbers separated by dots, like the example below.
23.227.38.67
As you can see, it is not easy to remember these numbers, and your site’s visitors need a convenient way to navigate to your website. This is where the domain name comes in. These IP addresses can be translated to a name that is usually easier to remember by a structure known as a Domain Name System (DNS).
When your site visitors want to find your website they can type this name - the domain name - on the address bar of their browsers. This search will be routed to a DNS server that locates the IP that corresponds to this domain name and serves your pages to the user in a matter of seconds.
So, that's what a domain name is, let’s now explore the different types.
Types of Domain Names
To choose the right domain name for your website, it is important to understand the anatomy of a domain name and its types. A typical domain name comprises 2 parts: a second level domain and a top level domain.
- Top Level Domain - this is the part after the dot. In the example above, ".com" is the top level domain. Top level domains have different types including .net, .com, .edu, .gov, .org, .io and many more.
With all these options, which top level domain is suitable for you?
Which Top Level Domain should you choose?
This depends on the type of website you want to set up and the region you want to target. You can refer to the short guide below to give you direction.
- Generic Top Level Domain (.com) - you should choose a generic top level domain (gTLD) if you want to target different regions across the world but set up your pages in different languages. Since there are numerous .com websites, other types of gTLDs have been developed like .wiki, .coffee, .guru, and so on.
- Country Code Top Level Domain (.co.uk, .de, .au) - choose this if you want to target an audience from a given country or region. For example .co.uk targets users in the UK. This type of domain enables you to have a localized presence and it ranks higher in search engine results than gTLDs.
- Top Level Domain by niche (.net, .io) - you can select the .net or .io TLD if your website deals in technology.
This is just a subset of information on top level domains, you can find more information here. Now that you have some ground knowledge on domain names, let’s move to purchasing a domain name.
How Much Does a Domain Name Cost?
Domain names are typically charged on a yearly basis. If you conduct some research before buying a domain name, you will realize that different domain names have different prices. Why is that? This is because there’s a lot more to know when it comes to domain name costs. On average, a domain name costs $10-15 yearly if the domain is not pre-owned. You will find some domains costing up to hundreds to thousands of dollars. This is usually because of 2 reasons:
- The domain is pre-owned and the owner who has established it is reselling it.
- It is a unique premium domain like .inc which costs $2,500.
The base price of domain names is dictated by registries that determine the price registrars should sell their domain names. A domain registry has control over a type of TLD. For example, Verisign operates the authoritative registry of the .com domain. Domain registrars on the other hand are like the retailers of domain names, tasked with selling these names to end users.
Which Domain Registrar Should you buy a Domain Name from?
The price can depend on the domain registrar, but these differences are usually not that large. You can purchase your domain from any one of these domain registrars:
Most of these domain registrars, such as GoDaddy and Bluehost, offer free domain registration for the first year, provided you purchase their hosting plan. That being said, which one should you choose?
Bluehost is one of the go-to registrars for websites, and you might have come across at least one of their ad campaigns. At the moment, Bluehost would be a fantastic option for you because you can get a domain name plus hosting for only $2.5 per month. After getting a domain name and hosting, what next?
Bluehost has a website builder that you can use to build your website after getting a domain name and hosting. However, we don't recommend it because it is severely limited. The most convenient way to easily build your website would be using WordPress.
You will get to save a lot of time and money that you would otherwise spend, having a website coded from scratch. It is currently the best content manager in the world, powering nearly half of the websites on the internet today. The best part? Bluehost offers a hosting plan specifically for WordPress.
This makes it easier to set up a WordPress website with Bluehost. Now that we’ve got the fundamental information out of the way, let’s get to the process of registering for a domain name and building your site.
How to Register for a Domain Name and Build your Site
The process of registering for a domain name is similar across different domain name registrars. In this post, we’ll use Bluehost as an example but you will follow the same general procedure if you choose a different domain registrar. After registering for your domain name, we’ll show you how to build your website using WordPress. Let’s begin.
Step 1: Register for a Domain Name and get hosting
1. Go to Bluehost WordPress hosting and select a plan. If you only want a single domain to set up a single website, you should select the basic plan. We recommend you select the Choice Plus plan if you want to set up multiple websites that are completely unrelated.
2. Next, search for your preferred domain name. You won’t be allowed to proceed if it’s not available.
Make the following considerations when selecting your preferred domain name:
- Keep it short and memorable (avoid generic).
- Avoid numbers, hyphens, or any other symbols.
- Use the trademark lookup tool to check for trademark infringement and avoid lawsuits.
- Don’t choose a trendy domain name, aim for longevity.
3. Once you get your domain name, provide your billing information on the next page and complete your purchase
Step 2: Set up your WordPress website
1. Next, go ahead and create your Bluehost account using your new name.
You will go through an onboarding process where you need to fill in some details about your site like the name, tagline, what you want to include in it, (blog, store, etc.), and so on. Bluehost will set up your selections on your website.
2. On the next page, you can select the theme that you want. We recommend the Astra theme because it is innovative and works exceptionally well with page builders.
As soon as you’re done selecting the theme, Bluehost will proceed to install WordPress for you with the settings you’ve just selected.
3. You will then be taken to the Bluehost dashboard, you can access your WordPress website
4. Before completing your setup, go to the email your registered your Bluehost account with and verify your domain name.
5. To access your WordPress site, click on the My Sites tab from the Bluehost dashboard and click on the login button on your WordPress site. You can also log in to your WordPress site without necessarily going through the Bluehost dashboard by typing my-domain-name/wp-admin/. Of course, you have to replace ‘my-domain-name’ with your actual domain name.
That’s it. Your WordPress website has been set up and your theme installed, the next step is to build the pages.
If you are looking to start a blog, our friend Ryan Robinson wrote an easy step-by-step guide on how to start a blog and make money from it. Ryan has over 10+ years of blogging experience and making money online, and this 6 steps tutorial might be the ultimate beginner’s guide to start a blog. A 10-15 minutes read we highly recommend.
Step 3: Build your WordPress site flexibly with Brizy
The standard for user experience has drastically risen in recent years when websites with a wide variety of designs have flooded the internet. Consequently, your site visitors expect your webpages to be interactive, intuitive, fast, and dynamic all at the same time.
Your theme alone can’t accomplish this, and here’s why you need a website builder. Brizy is one such website that enables you to achieve all of the above effortlessly.
Brizy is your go-to website builder if you want to generate high-converting and aesthetic web pages for your WordPress website. With over 36 elements to choose from you can build an extensive variety of pages that make your site visitors feel right at home. This solution has been built to significantly accelerate the page-building process. Instead of starting from scratch, you can select a template from 100+ mobile-optimized templates.
One of Brizy’s out-of-the-box features is that you can brand this builder as your own with Brizy’s White Label feature.
Brizy places no limits on the type of website you want to build, whether it is a portfolio, personal blog, e-commerce website, or sports website, you can build them all. You get to separate yourself from your competition by branding Brizy builder as your own.
The best part is that you can get started for free.
How to set up Brizy on GoDaddy WordPress hosting
You can get started with Brizy for free to get a feel of the service and then upgrade to the pro version for much more capabilities.
1. Go to Brizy’s official website by clicking here and press the Get Started button.
2. This will take you to the download section at the bottom, where you can choose to download the free version or step up to the pro version.
3. When you click on the free version, you can provide an email address in order directly to Download for FREE. A download link will be sent to the email you’ve provided in the previous step.
4. Go back to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Plugins>Add New. Click on Upload Plugin and select the zip file of the Brizy extension you previously downloaded and click on install now.
5. Activate it after installation is complete and that’s it, you’re ready to use Brizy to build your pages.
How to build your WordPress pages with Brizy
1. From your WordPress dashboard go to Pages>Add New
2. Name the page and click on Edit with Brizy. This will take you to the Brizy editor page.
3. Click on the Start Building your Page button at the center. On the next page, you will see a lot of options.
- If you want to build your pages from scratch, click Create your own box.
- Otherwise, there are numerous pre-built blocks that you can add to pages
- You can also choose between Light / Dark themes from different categories.
4. To add a block just click on it and it will be updated on your page.
5. From there you can change the alignment, images, typography, etc., of these blocks effortlessly.
6. You can also delete sections of these blocks to add new ones.
7. When you need to add a new block, just click on the add a new block button.
8. You can also switch the view between mobile, desktop, and tablet views.
This is only a taste of what Brizy can enable you to do with your site’s pages. We can’t cover all of them in just a single guide. With Brizy, you can build both personal and professional-looking web pages, optimized to generate high conversions for your website
Conclusion
Registering for a domain is the first step to taking your website online. It is vital to carefully select the domain registrar, hosting provider, and domain name that is suitable for your WordPress website. Your WordPress site with the theme alone is not enough to attract, retain, and ensure that site visitors retain. You need to create intuitive, interactive, fast, and versatile pages on your website for this to happen. Brizy website builder certainly gives you the capacity to achieve this.
Article by Bogdan
Co-founder & Head of Design, Bogdan has a passion for everything that works great and looks awesome. Guilty for most of the UI and UX around this place, you can say "Hi" to him at bogdan at brizy dot io
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