The Good Ole Days
In days gone by, when you wanted to start a business you would buy all your supplies, get an office, and then put out a sign. The sign stood out and told everyone you were in business. When it comes to websites, we do this in reverse. The first thing you need to do is hang your sign, and to do that you will need to choose a name for your site. Your site name is often called your Domain Name.
FirstnameLastname.com
It is recommended you use your name (or your pen name) as the name of your site. If your name is Arthur Runsible Cavendish, then your domain name would be ArthurRunsibleCavendish.com. If that happens to be your name, then you’re in luck, that domain name is available. If your name is John Smith, you might want to consider using Arthur Runsible Cavendish as your pen name.
What to Do
You will learn how to find out if your domain name is available later. First, let's talk about what to do if your name happens to be taken.
- You can use your middle initial. For example, JohnMSmith.com.
- You can use your whole middle name. For example, JohnMontegueSmith.com.
- You can consider other options such as JohnSmithBooks.com or JohnSmithAuthor.com or JohnSmithWrites.com.
What Not to Do
Second, let’s talk about what not to have in a domain name.
Don’t use dashes in your name. It will just confuse people to have to type in John-Smith.com.
Don’t name your website after your book unless you only plan on writing one book, ever. Here is what happens. You write your first book and get the website MutantKittensFromAntaresThree.com. The book is successful, so you write another one, "Max Fightmaster in Paris." All your readers of the new book won’t know where to find your old website, so you will have to setup a new website named MaxFightmasterInParis.com. Again and again, for every book you write.
Registrars
Now that you have some ideas for names, how do you know if they are available? There are organizations online that keep a registry of all the domain names. Coincidentally, these organizations are called registrars. You can look up information in the registry by doing a WhoIs search pronounced as the phrase "who is".
Resources
The following sites can be used to perform WhoIs serches: