Register a Domain Name

A domain name is simply a URL that acts as the name for your website.  You can register one with registrars such as Dotster, GoDaddy or Yahoo.  Registration is good for a year, but you typically have the option to register for up five years depending on the registrar.  A domain name doesn’t cost much these days as you can easily find them for under $10 per year.  When registering the name, think of something that will be easy for people to remember and one that perfectly suits your business.

Find a Web Host

If you intend to run your e-business through a website, then you will need to sign up with a web host.  Web hosting companies offer the service you need to create and maintain a website.  They offer the server that will serve your content and the connectivity that allows your site to be accessible by internet users.  There are thousands of companies that can provide you with this type of service.  What you have to do is perform the necessary reach to ensure you land a reliable service provider.

Site Design

Once you have registered a domain name and signed up with a web host, the next step is to create your website.  For this step, you essentially have two choices: hire a professional web designer, or build the site yourself.  Hiring a professional designer can be very expensive depending on the requirements of your website.  And while creating a website can be difficult for someone with no experience, many tools exist to simply the process.  There are a number of special programs that make it easy to create a website through a variety of templates and pre-built components.

Payment Method

If you plan to sell products or services from your website, then you will need to find a way to accept payments from your customers.  In order to accomplish this, three key components are required: a shopping cart, merchant account and payment gateway.  These components may be obtained separately or together in a bundled service.  For example, PayPal is a service that can provide you with a shopping cart, merchant account and payment gateway, everything you need to accept and process payments in a secure, and efficient manner.

Promote Your Site

Once your site has been created and integrated with the necessary features, it’s time to promote it to drum up some business. There are many ways you can go about promoting your site, including online advertising, PPC campaigning, and search engine optimization.  Everyone has their own preferred method, so it is up to you to find out what works best for your site.  Just remember that site promotion is critical, because without traffic, your e-business can’t survive.

Related posts:

• January 28, 2009 – Do You Need a Merchant Account?
• January 12, 2009 – The Essentials of E-commerce
• December 14, 2010 – Electronic Payment Processing: The Key to a Successful Business
• November 18, 2009 – How Complete is Your E-commerce Solution?
• July 9, 2009 – Introducing the nopCommerce Shopping Cart
• October 30, 2008 – What You Need in E-commerce Hosting
• January 4, 2012 – Top Domain Registration Services
• December 18, 2011 – How to Find Web Hosting Service Provider
• December 9, 2011 – NameCheap vs. GoDaddy
• December 4, 2011 – The Truth about Unlimited Webhosting

Your Domain Control Panel

The first thing you need to do is register a domain name.  This can be done for very cheap when signing up with reputable companies such as GoDaddy or Name.com. After registering the name, you will need to perform some domain management tasks, mainly working with your DNS settings.  This must be done to point the newly registered domain to your Blogger site.  By following these steps, you will see that it is all a simple process.

Adjust CNAME Values

In your domain control panel, find the “CNAME records” section to see if a “www.” value exists.  If it does not, go ahead and manually create one and then save it.  With the CNAME value configured in this manner, whenever a visitor enters “www” in front of your domain, they will be automatically redirected to your blog site.

Change Name Server

In order to make sure they are taken to the right location, you must enter “ghs.google.com” next to the “WWW” value field.  By doing so, you will get your domain pointed to Google’s Blogger server.

Keep in mind that it may take a little time for these changes to take effect, roughly anywhere from a few minutes to a 48 hours.

Activate Your Domain on Blogger

There is still more work to be done as you must now configure your blog account with the domain name you just set up.  To do so, log in to your Blogger account.  Once inside, click on “Settings,” select “Publishing,” “Switch to Custom Domain” and then navigate to “Advance Settings.”  From here you can enter your domain name in the provided text box.

Next, simply saving these settings and try to refresh your blog.  You should notice that it appears with the new domain rather than old sub-domain previously assigned by Blogger.

That’s it.  You can now enjoy start giving out your Blogger domain and reap all the benefits that along with it.

Conclusion

The best thing about having a custom domain is that it will not negatively impact your existing Blogger sub-domain.  Therefore, visitors who are more accustomed to the old URL can still use it to access your blog yet will be redirected to the site under the new name.  This means that you will not lose any traffic and still keep your previously built search engine rankings intact.  If anything, a custom Blogger domain will help you bring in even more visitors and quality traffic from the search engines.

Related posts:

• December 19, 2011 – Top 10 Domain Registrars
• December 9, 2011 – NameCheap vs. GoDaddy
• September 9, 2011 – Multiple domains – When Will This Benefit Your Endeavors?
• August 10, 2011 – Ongoing Battle over the new .Music Domain Extension
• July 18, 2011 – Domain Name Expansion Expected to Create Major Problems
• July 18, 2011 – Editing DNS Information in cPanel
• October 28, 2010 – The Difference Between Private and Business Domain Registrations
• September 29, 2010 – How to Transfer a Domain to Another Hosting Account
• July 28, 2010 – Knowing the Value of Your Domain
• July 15, 2010 – Easy Business Management with Multiple Domain Hosting