SMOB – Register a domain name and get hosting

by | Jan 12, 2017 | Human, Start My Own Business | 7 comments

When I am hanging out on SMEs forums or talk to anyone who wants to start a business, I can’t believe there are still people asking such a question…

‘hey, do I need a website?’

If you are still wondering if you need a website, you might have a very wrong idea what running a business entails these days. Check my post again to see if you are cut out for it.

Because honestly, how were you going to promote your business?

Especially for pet sitting business, and I dare say most self employed kind of one person gig, your business will most likely come from online. Because you can’t really afford to buy billboard now, can you?

In fact, I am seriously considering to stop printing flyers! 90% of my customers come from online and the 10% people that read my flyers usually end up to be the wrong kind of people. (I will do a separate post on this subject for a pet sitter specific discussion.)

Ok, now we have settled the fact that you need a website, let me explain what having a website involves. Over the years, a lot of people ask me questions on this subject and seem to get very confused. So basically, it involves:

  1. Domain name
  2. Hosting
  3. The actual website building

Today, we are going to talk about the domain name and hosting, follow my blog so not to miss my future post on website building!

There are actually many ways to get a domain name. You can either get a domain name through a registrar company or through a website builder, e.g. WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, Weebly, etc. (In my next post, I will talk about website builders and the comparison between them).

So what are the differences?

Registrar

Pros:

  • More control, your domain is not attached to any website building company, you can switch company whenever you want.
  • You are usually allowed to have as many email addresses as you want, depending on your hosting package.

Cons:

  • One more thing to manage (not much to manage to be honest, just direct debit every month!)

Website builder

Pros:

  • If you are using one of the website builder, it’s one stop shop. (That’s honestly the only advantage, I can’t think of anything else!)

Cons:

  • You are somehow tie down by the website builder, I am not sure how easy it is to take the domain with you to move to another platform if you decide to stop using WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, Weebly, etc. Please do your research and ask people who have used them and leave them with their domains. I have no experience on that.
  • You might be able to have an email address with your domain name. That is a bit mental in my opinion to run a business without an email address with your domain name, but I see SMEs doing that all the time. It looks insanely unprofessional and amateur. It screams – I am not doing this full time.
  • Limited options, you can’t get an .ie domain for example.

Disclaimer: I do use website builders, but I don’t buy domains from them, I supply my own domain because I don’t want to be tie down by their package. It costs a few Euro more per month to pay for hosting separately, but I am happy to have my own email address and I can change website builder whenever I want. So it’s possible to take advantage of both options.

If you are in Ireland and you want to get an .ie domain, you can get them through these Accredited Registrars. To get an .ie domain, you are required to send in proof that you need an .ie address. Your business has to be somehow related to Ireland.

If you are to get a .com address, you can get them in many more places. If you google ‘buy a domain’, you will find lots of companies. So how do you know who to choose?

That takes us to the second part of the equation – hosting.

You will probably be hosting your website with whoever you buy the domain name from. You need to check if their hosting packages is suitable to you. Check the price, check what is involved, etc, and there is one very very important thing…

How are their customer support?

I can’t emphasize how important it is because down the line your website is in their hands! If there is something wrong with the server, you need to be able to speak to someone. Do they provide 24/7 support? Do they do phone support? Or just email? Are they on a different time zone?

So what did I do?

I am using Blacknight. I have been doing so for the past 7 years and have been really happy with them. I learnt about them from another SME and really grateful for her recommendation. If you are not in Ireland, you might want to ask around, word of mouth is gold.

They are very easy to deal with. You can get your domain name and hosting within 5 minutes! The process is very simple and their customer service is excellent. Whenever there is a technical problem, they keep people posted, and server has never been down for more than half a day in the past 7 years. Really can’t fault them at all. Even with the cheapest hosting package, you can host up to 30 domains and I create as many email address as I want. I even create an email address for each of my cats! What’s more can I ask for?

So how do you buy a domain name on Blacklight then? Here is a step by step guide:

Step 1. First you can enter your whatever domain name you have in mind to the search bar to see if they are available…

screen-shot-2017-01-12-at-07-25-09

Step 2. Then you can see a full listing of what domain extension is available for you. You can see .ie is available for this example…

screen-shot-2017-01-12-at-07-25-16

Step 3. Then you “add to cart”.

screen-shot-2017-01-12-at-07-25-33

Step 4. And yes, due to Irish regulation, you must submit supporting information if you want an .ie domain, but you can email the documents after checkout. Answer the few questions they ask you here then you click “continue”.

screen-shot-2017-01-12-at-07-26-05

Step 5. They will try to “up-sell” you if you want to buy other domains as well.

screen-shot-2017-01-12-at-07-27-13

Step 6. Choose your hosting package. Personally, I think for most SMEs the Linux Minimus is plenty enough, it costs 4.95 Euro plus VAT, the best 4.95 Euro I have ever spent.

screen-shot-2017-01-12-at-07-27-46

Step 7. “Up selling” you again with other trimmings, choose whatever you think you need.

screen-shot-2017-01-12-at-07-28-11

Step 8. Pay! That’s all.

screen-shot-2017-01-12-at-07-28-39

Step 9. Then you are the owner of your domain! Login to your account to create passwords then you can go ahead and create your email. Once you have an email, you can use that for your website builder. And that brings us to the next post…

Coming up next: Website builders comparison – WordPress vs Squarespace vs Weebly vs Wix vs Shopify. 

You may also like…

Cat Lover Summer Camp

Cat Lover Summer Camp

We are having a different kind of summer this year. Are you trying to figure out something for the kids to do? Do you...

read more
Catsmas Gift Guide

Catsmas Gift Guide

It's hard to believe Catsmas is just around the corner but here we are... I don't care for Christmas very much myself....

read more

7 Comments

  1. Roger Brennan

    Hi Alice, many thanks for the kind words regarding our support here at Blacknight (I’m Blacknights Sales Manager by the way). It’s paramount to the success of our business that we offer top notch customer support so reading customer reviews such as the above is very encouraging. Thank you. As a point of interest we are going to be redeveloping our website in the coming months which will involve a much improved customer experience in our store.
    You also touched on an important topic – choice of website builder. There are many free tools out there to choose from. But people really need to do their research in advance as some of these tools impact on your domain name and there are cases where you are committed to providing free ad space on your site. There are many excellent tools on the market which are very cost effective and offer you, the owner, greater control. For example (and I don’t wish to be using this platform as a cheap sales pitch) we offer a tool called Basekit. It starts at only €8 per month plus VAT. It is template driven and extremely user friendly. You really don’t need to be a techie and most importantly, the owner has full control of their site. Maybe some food for thought for your next article.

    Reply
    • alicechauginguene

      Hey! Thanks for your comment! I don’t have experience with Basekit but sound interesting!
      Yes I don’t feel comfortable to get one of those ‘free’ domain through any of the website builders. That’s why I ALWAYS buy domain from you guys and diverted to it from whatever builders I was using. I feel much more comfortable knowing I own the domain and if I have any issue I have a phone number I can call to you guys and a human voice will be on the other end of the line!
      With the cheapest of your hosting package, I manage to have as many emails as I want, I even make one for each of my cat! Seriously!

      Reply
  2. Roger Brennan

    Cats with email…..that’s brilliant 🙂 Basekit is great. There’s a 1 month free trial as well so anyone can test it out before committing. One of our guys actually presented at an event recently. He purchased a domain, purchased Basekit and had a live website all in 20 minutes!!! Oh how technology is changing.

    Reply
    • alicechauginguene

      Oh wow! I must look into this! And if you guys want to do a guest post to introduce our audience to this website builder, let me know! You will explain much better than I do, since I am not techno savvy at all, I can just barely manage all my websites that’s all!

      Reply
  3. Roger Brennan

    Great idea, I’ll certainly mention it to our marketing guys. A huge percentage of our customers are not tech savvy so tools like Basekit are becoming really popular.

    Reply
    • alicechauginguene

      Exactly! I would think most SMEs would be like me. That’s why I thought I would share my experience so people can see how easy it can be done.

      Reply
  4. Roger Brennan

    Not a truer word spoken. Have a great weekend Alice and I will get back to you about the guest post

    Reply

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. SMOB – Website builders: WordPress vs Squarespace vs Weebly vs Wix vs Shopify – The Purrfect Job - […] the last post, I talked about buying a domain and sort out hosting. This time, I am going to talk…

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

ABOUT THIS BLOG

I started this blog on 2014.
After working as a cat care professional for several years, I realised that I am in a unique position meeting a lot of interesting cats and their incredible humans.
This blog is their stories.
I also share some tricks of the trade and educational information.
I hope you enjoy.

ExpatsBlog.com - Where Expats Blog
BlogWithIntegrity.com