How to Claim Your Brand Name and Rent Digital Real Estate
You just settled on the perfect name for your new business, but now what? (psst..if you still need a name, check out the free Vision, Mission, and Name resource in our Discord library.) Follow the 5 steps below to claim your brand name online.
- Confirm someone else isn’t already using the name with a quick Google search
- Confirm the domain name is available by typing it into domains.com
- Create a free email account for your new brand (gmail is okay) and use this email address to register your domain and social media handles
- Register your domain name; use code DOMAIN10 for 10% off at domain.com
- Register your social media handles; at minimum, register for 3 of the big 4: twitter, instagram, facebook, and youtube. You can add any smaller social media platforms you are passionate about
At this point, you can think of registering your domain name like securing an address where people can go to find you. Right now, that’s all it is, an address. The address is not assigned to any land yet. To find land to build your website, you have to find digital land owners with server space to rent to you. The “rent” you’re paying for is called web hosting. With hosting, you’re essentially renting an empty lot that’s full of potential for you to build any kind of digital structure on.
After you start renting some digital land, you can link your domain name to the land so when someone tries your address, the internet knows to direct them to the right location that houses your website. This is done in the c-panel of your hosting provider by updating the DNS settings.
You can expect to pay about $10 a year to register your domain name with a registrar and you can register your domain for multiple years at a time. You will have to renew your registration before it expires to keep your domain name. Hosting plans can range anywhere from $7 to $40+ a month depending on what kind of server and features you’re getting. You won’t need a hosting plan until you’re ready to start building your actual website. Learn more about when to invest in each part of a website here.
Before you start paying for hosting, use our pre-build checklist to make sure you have everything you need to start designing your website.
