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Buying your first domain name can be a little daunting. Not only are you taking the first big step in actually doing this – creating a website for yourself – is seems so technical at first and what do all those terms mean. DNS. Nameservers. cPanel. FTP. Once you get your head around the lingo, it’s actually a fairly simple system to master.

I buy a mixture of .com and .com.au domains and there are a couple of difference between buying the two. Australia has a couple of conditions that you have to adhere by that you don’t have to when buying .com domains. In Australia, to purchase a .com.au (or .net.au) domain name you need to have an ABN. This doesn’t mean to need to have a business or be trading as a business. You can easily go get yourself an ABN at the Australian Business Register website. By doing this it doesn’t mean you have to register business names, register for GST or any of that, it just means you will be allocated an ABN and it’s up to you whether you ever use it for business purposes. As a side note, you’ll also find that when signing up for affilate programs, you are sometimes required to provide your ABN. When purchasing .com domains outside of Australia, you are not required to provide any kind of business information to register. Aussie domain names also have to be registered for a minimun of 2 years. I have done a little research on this but can’t find out why we have to register them for 2 years – if anyone knows, please let me know!

Where To Buy Domains

I buy all my .com domains from Go Daddy, which are extremely competitive in price. You’ll find most internet marketers use Go Daddy to buy their domains. Go Daddy is not only cheap, there are always coupons available online that give even more discounts. And I just love coupons! For example, I purchased 6 domain names the other day and after the coupon I used the total cost was AUD$43.

You have to purchase .com.au domain names from an Australia Registrar. Though I’m not 100% on this but I’m pretty sure that no one outside of Australia can sell .com.au domains. I buy my aussie domains from Netregistry or Crazy Domains. I like Netregistry as they are a very reputable, solid company but they tend to be more expensive  than others. Netregistry sometimes have sales and if I see them having one I will always buy domains from them. Australian sites are a little sneaky in the way they advertise their rates for domain names. You will often see ”Register .com.au domains for only $12″. You automatically assume this is the price for the two years but it is not – it’s the price per year even though you have to buy two years – so just keep an eye out for that.

How Much They Should Cost

When buying .com domains the market is very competitive but the average price usually ranges between $7-$10. As mentioned before, Go Daddy have lots of coupons and if you purchase your hosting with Go Daddy then buy your domain name after you usually get a .com domain for under $2. When buying .com domains just do a little reasearch to see where you’ll get the best deal.

In regards to aussie domains, Netregistry usually charge around $34-$36 to register a domain for two years while Crazy Domains charge $24 for two years. The only thing I don’t like about Crazy Domains is that if you have your hosting with another registrar, which you most likely will, they make you buy a DNS package to enable you to change your email settings to be able to get your emails through your host provider. It’s only around $5 per year but it’s just a little annoying that it’s something else you have to to sign up for. On the other hand, Netregistry don’t charge for this.

Now For Your Hosting

Up until this week I put all my hosting through Go Daddy. It’s cheap, especially compared to aussie host providers, and costs around AUD$6-7 per month (per site). So I’m currently paying around $70 per month for my hosting. This week though, I found out that hosting providers have plans which allow you to have unlimited websites registered for the one price. I don’t know how I didn’t know about this earlier! I have started hosting with Hostgator, which I have heard good things about over at the Warrior Forums. The sites I have currently hosted with Go Daddy I will leave there for now as I have never had a problem with Go Daddy hosting. So why would I change? Well Hostgator have a hosting plan which costs AUD$8 per month for unlimited domains and unlimited disk space. To get the same plan on Go Daddy costs AUD$15. I also did a search online for a Hostgator coupon and found one which gives me my first month of hosting for $0.01. Yes, that’s one cent. At one point, I thought with the aussie exchange rate it would eventaully be charged at $0.00 but it still cost me a cent. I am going to trial Hostgator for the month and see how it goes, then will make a decision on who to go with.

You Have A Domain & Hosting, Now What?

Once you have purchased your domain and hosting you may have to make some adjustments to the settings - mainly the nameservers. A nameserver tells your domain host where your actual website content is being hosted. When you buy a domain it is by default, pointed at where you bought the domain from. If you are buying your domain and hosting at the same place, there is no need to change anything. Below, I have provided some directions on how to change your nameservers if you do buy domains and hosting separetely.

Go Daddy Domain with External Hosting

When you purchase your hosting, Hostgator will email you details of what your nameservers are. Log into your Go Daddy account and head over to Domain Management and then into DNS Manager. This should bring you to a list of your domains. Select Edit Zones to change.

You then scroll right down to the bottom of the page where you’ll see the current Nameservers. Here you can select Quick Add and enter the correct Nameserver. You will need to do this twice as you need to enter two different Nameservers. Once entered Save Zone Files.

You then need to delete the default Nameservers otherwise the correct ones won’t work. To do this, just select the checkboxes next to the Nameservers you want to delete, then scroll back to the top of the page and select Delete.

Crazy Domain Domain with External Hosting

To change your Nameservers in Crazy Domains you need to log into your Domain Name Manager Account and navigate to Manage Domains. This will bring up a list of your domains. Select the one you want to change. On the next screen scroll down until you see Update Nameservers and this is where you enter the correct Nameservers and delete the default ones.

Netregistry Domain with External Hosting

To change your Nameservers at Netregistry you will need to log into your account where you will be taken to an Account Summary page. At the section named Administer/Upgrade Domain, select the appropriate domain from the list and Administer. From here you can select Domain Name. At the bottom of this page, it gives you the option to update your Nameservers.

Just take note that it can sometimes take up to 24 hours for the changes to take effective so give it a day. If it’s still not working then investigate what the problem could be or contact the helpdesk of the domain host. That’s basically all there is to taking the first steps in setting up your website. Done once, it becomes a breeze and you should be up and running within a couple of hours of purchasing your domain and hosting.

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