Getting Your Company Domain
The 21st century can be touted as the digital era and logically, companies have seen the tremendous potential digitalization offers and have begun to improve on their online presence.
The first step to begin your online presence would be to purchase a domain. A domain as defined by Wikipedia is ‘a distinct subset of the Internet with addresses sharing a common suffix or under the control of a particular organization or individual’. Examples of domains include the unique name that appears after the @ sign in email addresses, and after www. in web addresses. It typically takes the form of your organization's name and a standard Internet suffix, such as yourbusiness.com or stateuniversity.edu.
A suitable analogy to express this situation would be to think of the contents of your website as your furniture as well as the belongings in your house. The domain would be the web hosting server that contains the furniture. This ‘building’ has a unique address [similar to a postal address / postcode] which is listed on a series of worldwide directories.
There are 2 types of websites that assist you with domain purchases. One type sells domains which are available while the other assists you with purchasing domains from people who already own the domain. Do bear in mind that the latter can be much more expensive.
How much do domains cost?
Usually domain purchase companies charge a very insignificant fee for the first domain you purchase with your account. This can range from S$1 to S$5. Much of the cost for the domain is paid monthly as a subscription based service.
Subsequent domain purchases might be slightly pricier, ranging from S$20 to SS50. Hence, if you are intending to setup multiple email domains such as XXX@wealthbridgesales and XXX@wealthbridgeaccounts, we would advise you to make such purchases when there are discount deals available.
However, not all domains come cheap, as some of them can be classified as premium domains. An example of a premium domain would be premiumdomain.net, which is currently listed for S$10,000 on GoDaddy. Premium domain names are usually owned by other individuals and have a high perceived value, explaining their high prices.
What are the different types of domains I can choose?
Many of the domains we see on a daily basis use the .com type of domains but there are plenty of other viable options. They are
- .co
- .net
- .world
- .space
- And finally, country code top-level domains e.g. .com.sg. Country code top-level domains are top-level domains reserved for countries or independent territories. They usually would be more expensive and would require some form of identification from that particular country.
Which domain should I choose?
There are several factors affecting whichever domain you should choose
Availability
The foremost factor would be availability. Numerous domain names have already been bought off the internet by other users. This would especially be the case for any catchy and brandable names such as Pastalabs.com
Location
Availability of country code top-level domains have greatly reduced the cost of domains for many companies, as they are able to purchase a country specific domain instead of buying the .com domain from another individual. The competition for local domains are also less stiff, as purchases of these domains are only exclusive to residents of the country and require identification numbers to be purchased.
Memorability
Choose a domain name that is unambiguous and simple. Avoid domains such as pas.ta.labs.com. Having domains with keywords inside also will assist you subsequently in your Search Engine Optimization.