How to Purchase a Domain Name from Godaddy
It’s so easy, once you know how and get a little bit of help, to create your own website. WordPress has been built to be used by beginners through to complex web developers. And the beauty of this is that you too can create your own website, buy your domain name and host it all by yourself. And that gives you the control.
To purchase a domain name firstly we’re going to go to Godaddy.com and open that screen up. Now if you already have an account with Godaddy you can sign in… if you don’t you can register for a free account either now or as you purchase.
So in this search Box you enter the name of the domain name you are interested in – now this should be “keyword rich” . For example if you’re interested in organic dog food, then perhaps you want a name like organicpoochfood.com – whatever your niche is you really need to do some keyword research. So for example my niche is WordPress, so I would be looking for keywords like WordPress Step by Step, or WordPress Elearning or www.wordpressmasteryprogram.com – you can use a program like Keyword Planner to help you do this.
Once you have entered the name you are interested in purchasing, you simply click the search button. The screen will return with one of two screens – if you were unsuccessful it will let you know that the domain name is not available, but will give you alternatives you could be interested in. The second screen that could come back would be to say you are ‘successful’ and show you the pricing to purchase the domain name.
You do have the option to also purchase other extensions of your domain name. Now that’s not necessary unless you want to use those as forwarding domains or you want to lock out any possibility of any variation being purchased by other people.
So for example I could also purchase the .net for www.wordpressmasteryprogram.com
The favoured option is to use the .com extension as it is popular with Google.
It’s not necessary to purchase these immediately, you can always come back into this area and purchase later if you wish.
Once you are happy you have your domain name, just click on Select and it will take you through to the next screen where it will ask if you want to purchase any add ons.
Firstly do you want to protect your domain name. It will also list lots of other domains you could purchase as well.
So just continue to the Cart – the next screen asks you if you want to protect your personal information.. so again if I wanted to protect www.wordpressmasteryprogram.com I would have a look at this option. There is discussion around this option and whether it is viable and actually does work… so it’s up to you if you want to spend that money or just leave it.
The next section is asking if you want to purchase a website builder and hosting… and at this stage we don’t want any of those because I’m going to show you how to Host your own domain without having to be locked in… and be able to check out excellent pricing before you purchase.
So we will scroll past that panel, and past the ‘add email to domain’, we don’t need that either, because your hosting provider will give those to you for free.
We can now continue to the Cart – this will take you to a further screen. Now I want you to read these items and “uncheck” any items you don’t want. By default some items are checked for you to purchase… We only want to purchase a domain name for say 2 years… so the amount to pay should be around the $23 mark. Go ahead and uncheck anything else that you don’t need.
Now we proceed to the checkout… and if you’re a new customer then go ahead and register for your free account. If you’re a returning customer simply log in with your secure login details.
After that, simply fill in your name, address and other details required by the system and then proceed to the payment window. There you can choose which way you want to pay, and there are a couple of options there for you. So go ahead and select which option you are most comfortable with.
The system will place your order and then Verify your account and details, followed by a Thank You Page. You will then receive confirmation into your email account for your records.
Now you’re ready to go to the next Step – Hosting Your Domain
