I hope this isnt the first article you are reading here. I hope you have some idea of what you want to build, or how you want to start some sort of business on the net, or if you want to. I really encourage you to get out a pen and paper or how every you sort out ideas, and get to thinking.
Starting from scratch.
If your plan is to only do freelance work still seems a bit off not to sell those services from a website. You want people to come to you, and selling your services is a great start, and it will teach you a lot, good and bad.
So yes you are going to, this is where I would start if I had it to do over. First learn a bit about domains.
Here are 3 of my unfinished sites, but there is some good info on all of them and two of the first things you must do, get a domain, and a hosting account
www.dontdomain.com
about why you shouldnt domain, but so many do
www.dnprofits.com
Why domains are a great business for the right people
www.hostproblems.com
A good cost effective host is paramount
************READ THIS************
Read and take everything with a grain of salt. Like the other day, on someone that has gotten rich by many standards said something that just isnt true, not every site runs on cpanel, its insane to say that. Just like 20 years ago I took a course on topics in this area and our professor said something that was wrong. It was about php scripts. You have to learn this stuff, but you cant take everything as correct.
So figure out what makes a good domain. I very much prefer exact match domains with decent number of searches. Yes I like short too, but short or zany, not likely to describe its content, which is the other thing I like. jvclass.com sort of fills the bill save it doesnt scribe its content and people.
I also would steer away from building on someone else domain(subdomains) or whatever where you are making money(in theory) but only on their site, same with like having tons of followers on YT or any of the social sites. Good ways to make money, and especially the social sites great way to promote your future site, but we are talking about your SITE, not making money with who ever’s program.
Spend a few hours deciding what makes a good domain, look at some keyword finders, go to namepros.com there is some good advice there (and bad of course). There are also some good names for sale there, good and bad as well of course. Some bargains and be had there, and some are just pie in the sky prices.
I honestly think you can find some decent names that are unregged, if you figure out you first niche, and really start looking. Here is my exact plan on finding a domain name on a new topic. So you know I’m not full of it here are most of my domains for sale, they are for sale, and decent price but write me (or call) and I will likely give a discount.
http://www.afternic.com/profile/brooksprings
First pick your topic, it needs to be a little more specific than horse or golf. Let say horses. First I would go to a keyword finder and search horses. There I would see if I could narrow it down a bit. I use the free part of wordstream, and they also have some really good articles (pretty good place for some core knowledge). So hopefully you have narrowed it down some, famous horses, horse breeding, raising, saddles. Let go with western saddles. The first 25 results has search volume of 1900 on the last entry, which means most of those are taken. I’m not going to do as I would normally as I’m not looking for a western saddle name. I did see one I thought might be unregged, but it wasnt and their asking price seems high.
I did find one in that area, that would mostly work. Here is also an important list in
Can you remember it
does it describe its content
is it fun to say
Can you say it
can you spell it
Can you remember it
do people search for it
is it short
And for goodness sakes, dont get a trademarked name, you can sell windows, but if you got say fixwindows you better be talking about on a house. Buying a trademarked name or one that borders on it is just asking for trouble. Trouble finds you easy with doing something that legally should come as part of the law is a trademark must protect their name.
Had I not found one yet I would look at leandomainsearch.com For the term horse there are some workable domains, but none that would seem to have stand alone value. That said I didnt look through them all as I am not looking for a domain, trying to focus on a good helpful advice for you.
Next I would go to justdropped.com I searched for .coms that end in horses that dropped over the last 90 days. That number is only 518 today, lot better than the huge number for enterprises.
GRRRRRRRRRR. So I bought a horse name breedsofhorses.com That is mostly based on the number of searches for that exact term. I bought it at porkbun.com as they are my second favorite, and currently .coms are on sale for .coms at $7.98 on Tuesday and Thursday. I listed on afternic and put it for sale in the porkbun market place, at $125 and 50 respectively. In an ideal world I could go to a forum and sell it for $30 bucks or so, its a good name, and I can build a site for it. I’m also a bit interested in the topic, but dont see me buying a horse so it might be knowledge I dont need.
I didnt get into the next step which not really to, but need to end for now. I will leave you with this, I recommend dynadot first, porkbun second, name cheap, and last GD. I’ll expand on all later, but I feel best about dynadot, and if you write me I can save us both $5 on your next name, and mine too.
