Sure, there are a few steps to the whole thing, but they aren’t complex or anxiety-inducing, especially not when you have a guide.  

In this post, we cover the A to Z of how to transfer a domain name. Keep reading, and you’ll learn the following information: 

• What does it mean to transfer a domain name? 
• Common reasons for transferring a domain name. 
• How to transfer a domain name. 
• Cost of transferring a domain name.  
• Whether or not your website and email will go down during a domain transfer. 
• And more! 

Use the table of contents below to jump to a particular section in this guide or start from the top for a comprehensive overview of transferring domain names.  

Domain Name Transfer FAQs 

Here’s everything you need to know about transferring domain names in one place.  

What does it mean to transfer a domain name? 

Transferring a domain name means moving a domain from the registrar where it is currently managed to a different registrar.  

Why transfer a domain name? 

You might want to transfer your domain name from one registrar to another for any number of reasons. Below, we’ve listed some of the most common reasons we hear from our domain registrants.  

• Cost and value.  
  • Registrars determine their own pricing based on the products and services they sell. Some registrars, like Domain.com, offer free perks with your domain registration (like email forwarding, URL forwarding, and more).  
  • If you’re not happy with the pricing structure of your current registrar and the features they offer, it may be time to make a change.  
• Domain management and user-friendliness.  
  • Managing your domain names shouldn’t be a hassle. Choose a registrar who prioritizes ease of use and offers all the features you need.  
  • Some registrars offer their own services and seamless integrations for things like email and hosting — while others offer clunky 3^rd party integrations that may slow you down.  
• Domain name is changing ownership.  
  • Did you sell a domain name? Or purchase one from someone else? That domain needs to be transferred to its new owner. 
• Customer support.  
  • If you run into a hiccup with your domain name, you’ll want to talk to an expert that can help. At Domain.com, our knowledge base and specialists are available 24/7.  

How long does it take to transfer a domain name? 

Transferring a domain name is a quick process. Once you’ve completed a few steps (like making sure the domain is unlocked, etc.), the rest of the process is taken care of by the registrars.  

You can complete your portion of the transfer process in one sitting (which we recommend for security reasons) It only takes an hour or two, max, and that’s being generous. Then, the registrars do their parts to complete your transfer which can take up to 5-7 business days.  

What do I need to transfer a domain name? 

To facilitate a successful domain name transfer, ensure the following four criteria are met: 

1. Domain(s) must be valid and registered with another registrar.  
2. The domain(s) must have been registered for at least 60 days and in unlock status.  
3. Admin contact and domain registrant information must be up-to-date.  
4. You have your transfer authorization, or EPP code, from the registrar you’re moving away from.  

Does transferring a domain name affect my custom email address? 

Moving your domain name doesn’t mean you have to move your email hosting. 

Are you using a third party to host your email? If so, it shouldn’t be affected by transferring a domain name. Domain.com does not make changes to the name servers for your domain during the transfer process.  

If your custom email address is hosted with your domain provider, a transfer could affect you. To avoid that, make sure to transfer your email account’s MX records to your new registrar while transferring your domain. By doing this, you’ll ensure your email account is linked to your domain name. However, you’ll continue to manage your email with your original provider. 

Want to transfer to Domain.com and manage your email with us? Create a Google Workspace account with Domain.com and migrate your email to that account.  

Will my website go down during a domain name transfer? 

Nope!  

When you transfer a domain name from one registrar to another, that’s literally all you’re doing. You’re not moving your email or hosting. During the domain transfer process, your nameservers don’t change — they’ll stay pointed to the same pre-transfer nameservers.  

Now, it’s another story if you’re changing your hosting provider along with your domain registrar. If you decide to change your website host, follow these steps to avoid site downtime: 

• Import your DNS records to your new hosting provider (it may be your new registrar.) 
• Double-check to make sure the DNS information is correct.  
• Change the nameservers at the originating registrar.  
  • You may have to wait for propagation; it could take 24-48 hours.  

Another scenario to consider is if you’re using the default nameservers of your current (pre-transfer) registrar. Many registrars offer access to free nameservers so long as your domain remains registered with them. If you decide to transfer your domain, you could lose access to those nameservers.  

If you’re unsure whether you’re using default nameservers, ask your registrar BEFORE you transfer your domain. We recommend keeping your domain pointed to your hosting provider’s nameservers.  

Will my website content transfer along with my domain name?  

No. Your website content will remain hosted wherever your site is hosted.  

Can I make changes to a domain while it’s being transferred? 

You cannot make any changes to a domain name when it’s actively in the transfer process.  

This means you’re unable to: 

• Update nameservers. 
• Change the WHOIS registration information.  
• Renew the domain registration.  

If you must make one of those edits, you’ll need to contact the originating registrar with a request to cancel the transfer. Otherwise, you’ll need to wait the standard 5-7 business days for the process to finish so you can make your edits.  

Can I transfer an expired or expiring domain name?  

Domain names must be in good standing for transferral.  

Attempting to transfer a domain that is on hold, expired, or expiring within 10 days can sometimes cause unexpected complications. If your domain is in one of those statuses and you’re looking to transfer it, call our transfer team for assistance at 800-403-3568.  

How do I prepare my domain name for transfer?  

Ready to transfer your domain name? Verify that you’ve got the following ducks in a row with your current registrar and you will be.

• Unlock your domain name.  
• Disable your domain’s privacy settings.  
• Ensure the admin contact information is updated and correct.  
• Get your transfer authorization code, also known as an EPP code.  
  • Depending on your registrar, you may need to contact them directly for your code.  
• Ensure your domain is at least 60 days old or opt-out of your domain lock. 
• Make sure your domain isn’t tangled up in any legal disputes as that’s a quick way to get it locked at the registry level.  

What is the 60-day domain lock? 

As of December 1, 2016, domain registrars are required to impose a lock that prevents a domain name from transfer for 60 days post-change to a registrant’s information.  

The good news? Registrars can provide a way to opt out of the 60-day lock. Not all registrars offer that ability upfront, which can make life difficult when managing domain names.  

At Domain.com, we believe you should have total management of your domain name, so we provide the option to unlock your domain right from your account dashboard. Simply toggle your domain lock on or off, depending on your needs.

How much does it cost to transfer a domain name?  

ICANN, the non-profit organization that oversees domains, requires that domain names be renewed for an additional year when transferred.  

At Domain.com, you can transfer your domain name for as low as $9.99. We don’t charge additional fees for domain name transfers, though the same can’t necessarily be said for all domain registrars.  

Transferring domain names to Domain.com 

Looking to transfer your domain name to Domain.com? Thanks for your consideration! Here’s what you need to know.  

Why should I transfer my domain name to Domain.com? 

Domain names are our bread and butter, and we’ve been a leader in the industry since 2000.  

However, it isn’t our age that makes us a great fit for your domains; it’s the fact that we’re designed to make managing your domains a breeze. Here’s how we do it… 

Straightforward domain management. 

Your domain dashboard lets you quickly and easily manage your domain names. That means no hunting around for hidden tools — toggle the most important features on or off as you need them.  

Once logged in, you can manage additional domain features (like pointers and subdomains) from the menu immediately to the left of your summary dashboard.  

Plentiful hosting options. 

We’re here to make your life easier when it comes to domains and to help you create and build your online presence.  

We don’t just offer over 300 TLDs for registration; we offer various website hosting and builder services, email, and more! 

Automatic domain name renewal.  

Your claim to your domain name has an expiration date.  

When your domain registration period runs out, so does your ownership of that domain name. You can leave yourself a reminder on your calendar to manually renew it, or you can use Domain.com’s Auto Renewal feature so that it’s one less thing to worry about.  

Cost-conscious pricing.  

We offer some of the most competitive pricing available in the domain name industry. Don’t believe us? Check it out for yourself. We’re not in the business of hiding our pricing and making it difficult to find.  

24/7 customer support.  

Sometimes, we all need a little help. Our teams are there for you 24/7.  

You can reach our teams by phone or live chat, and you have a comprehensive Knowledge Base chock-full of FAQs and step-by-step guidance at your disposal.  

How to transfer your domain from GoDaddy to Domain.com. 

Ready to make the move to Domain.com from GoDaddy? Here are the steps you’ll take to transfer your domain name to Domain.com.  

1. Log into your GoDaddy Account Manager.  
2. In the “My Products” section, find and click “Domain Manager.” 
3. Use the checkbox(es) to select the domain name(s) you want to modify.  
4. Above the list of your domain names, select “Locking.” 
5. To unlock the domain(s), clear the lock domains checkbox.  
6. Select “OK.” 
7. Click “OK” again. 

To retrieve your transfer authorization code from GoDaddy, follow these steps:

1. Log into your GoDaddy Account Manager.  
2. In the “My Products” section, click “Domain Manager.” 
3. Select the domain name whose authorization code you want.  
4. In the “Authorization Code” field, click the “Send by Email” hyperlink. 
5. Select “OK.” 
6. Click “OK” again. 

After submitting your transfer request to Domain.com, we’ll then send you an email confirming your transfer. Make sure to confirm your transfer via that email. Within it, we provide a link to your account so you can log in and enter your transfer authorization code.  

And that’s it! 

Transfer your domain name and build your online presence  

Transferring a domain name shouldn’t be a complicated process. At Domain.com, our goal is to make your domain name transfer as painless and intuitive as possible.  

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to our teams, leave a comment down below, or check out this Knowledge Base article to learn more about transferring a domain name to your account.

Developing a strategy around your brand and learning how to market it are pivotal to the success of not just your brand, but your business as well. And that’s exactly what we’re discussing in today’s blog post. 

If you’d like to learn more about what a brand is and the different elements that comprise it, check out part one of our Guide to Branding, “What is Branding?” here. 

What is Brand Strategy and Marketing?

A strong brand strategy helps you present a unified, consistent brand identity in market: Ranging from your site design, to your social media profiles, and even to how you communicate with customers. 

Consistency is pivotal to branding because it helps set expectations with your audience, and a consistently good experience with your brand increases brand loyalty. Without a brand strategy to drive that consistency, your business will suffer. 

Crafting a brand strategy isn’t difficult, but it does take time and effort. 

A good brand strategy helps you understand your business values and directs your brand to grow in manners beneficial to both your business and customers. It’ll help you communicate with your audience clearly and effectively, attract the right customers, and positions your brand in a way that helps you grow your market share. 

Why is Brand Strategy Important?

Without a good, consistent brand strategy your business will suffer. 

Crafting a brand strategy helps you understand who you are and what matters to your business, like your values and mission. Those are vitally important to understand when making marketing and business decisions. 

When you have an inconsistent brand, your marketing and communications take a hit, and if you can’t clearly communicate your brand and values to your customers, you’ve lost them. 

So let’s look into how to create a brand strategy and what you can do to succeed against the competition. 

How to Create a Brand Strategy

Before sitting down to create your brand strategy, it’s good to have the following information at hand:

• Who’s your target audience?
  • Who are you trying to reach? Do you know what your ideal customer looks like? To craft an effective brand strategy you must know who you’re talking to and what their needs are so you can offer the appropriate solution. If you know your audience, you can speak to them more effectively.
• Who’s your competition?
  • What other businesses and brands are competing for the same customers and audience? This information is vital to know. If you understand your competition, you can figure out how to position yourself in the marketplace to stand out from them and attract customers. 

Once you have that information handy, it’s time to start strategizing. So, let’s do it. To build your brand strategy, follow the steps below. 

Understanding the Core of Your Brand

Your business holds a set of core beliefs that drives and influences every aspect of your brand. You can think of these beliefs as your business values or your mission. 

When your brand and core business beliefs are aligned, it’s a powerful thing. When they’re not, well, you’re facing some issues. 

If you understand what drives your business, what drives your brand, then you can successfully communicate that to your customers both verbally and visually. It allows you to grow your business in a way that successfully sets you apart from competitors and engenders you to your audience. 

Without a set of guiding beliefs, your messaging will be erratic, employees may feel directionless, and overall, your business will suffer. 

To help you determine your core values and beliefs, ask yourself the following questions:

• Who am I? Why does this business exist?
  • These questions help you understand the purpose of your business. 
• What does the future of my business look like? What does success look like and how do I create it?
  • These questions help you understand your business’s vision and mission, and help you determine what needs to be done to support them. 

It’s essential that you start your brand strategy by diving into the heart of your brand and determining your values. These values and your core brand can then be shared with your audience and in market through messaging and visual representations. 

Define Your Brand Voice and Messaging

Now that you understand what makes your brand tick, it’s time to figure out how to communicate that to your customers and in the market. You can think of this as an exercise in brand messaging. 

Brand messaging is the practice of talking about who you are. Like with any practice, the more you hone and refine your messaging, the better it gets. Defining your brand messaging helps your brand communicate honestly and effectively. 

It’s important to spend time figuring out your brand messaging before jumping into the more visual aspects of your brand. That’s because your brand’s visual assets are largely an extension of your messaging and how you represent yourself online and in market. 

For example, when developing Domain.com’s brand strategy, we determined that our messaging needs to be authentic, interesting, and straightforward. Cleverness is okay, but we’re not cutesy and we won’t pander. We try to be honest and transparent while speaking clearly and simply — no “fluff.”

In turn, this helped us craft our visual identity — bold, strong, and energetic. Our approach with images and the more flexible creative elements of our brand is to find clean, clear imagery for complicated concepts. Our minimal illustration style is designed much like our messaging, again, no “fluff.”

To craft the best brand messaging, you’ll need to understand three things:

• Your brand’s personality. 
  • Long gone are the days when businesses were entirely formal and focused on transactions alone. Now, your brand needs to have some personality. What characteristics and human attributes does your brand express? Are you fun and cheerful or serious and direct? Determining what attributes to highlight in your messaging helps you build relationships with the right audience. 
• What voice to use. 
  • Your brand voice is unique. A car dealership doesn’t have the same voice as a non-profit, and for good reason. Your brand’s voice is your brand’s personality put into words and articulated in your customer-facing messaging. 
• What tone to take. 
  • A good way to determine your tone is to think about how you want your messaging to make people feel. Your voice won’t change, but your tone can depending on the context of your message or who you’re talking to. Just because your voice is clever, doesn’t mean you can’t have a serious tone when necessary. 

Once you’ve defined your brand messaging, it’ll be so much easier to communicate effectively and talk about who you are in market. Your brand messaging and voice should be used when sharing your brand story, making a pitch, or making a promise to your customers. 

Define Your Brand’s Visual Identity

Usually, when someone hears the word “brand” they immediately jump to thinking of colors and logos. However, we chose to include visual identity as the third step in your brand strategy because it’s a continuation of your brand messaging. 

Your brand expresses itself through colors, images, and icons just as much as it does with words. When crafting your visual identity keep in mind that you’re designing not just for your immediate needs, but for your brand’s future, too. 

With that said, your visual identity needs to be clear and intuitive so that the different elements, like colors and logos, work together. There needs to be an element of flexibility so that you can adapt and grow as your business does and as you introduce new products or services. And it needs to be comprehensive. Detail your color palette and what your imagery is meant to convey so that your employees or contractors understand and can apply your visual identity to their tasks and responsibilities. 

Translating Your Brand Strategy into Brand Guidelines

Now that you’ve gone through the exercise of determining your brand strategy it’s time to finalize it. 

Translating your brand strategy into a tangible document that contains your brand guidelines is an essential step in achieving business success. Having this information documented not only keeps you accountable, but it makes it easy to share with whomever needs the information, whether that be employees or an outside contractor. 

We recommend using a cloud-based tool, like Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, to track this information. Both tools make it easy to work from wherever you’re located and you can access your files across various devices. They also make it easy to collaborate with others and stay on top of tasks. 

Your brand guidelines should detail the following information:

• Mission
• Vision
• Voice & Tone
• Color Palette
• Logos, Taglines, and Icons
• Typography and font
• Visual Language and Identity
• Media kit 
  • Your media kit should include downloadable files of any logos or design elements that your employees or contractors may need to support your brand. 

Putting Your Brand into Market

Ready to take your business and brand into the market? Congrats!

Now that you’ve established your brand strategy, you’ve set yourself up for success. 

You can use your brand strategy and guidelines to talk your customers online and off — in email, via social media, and face-to-face. And you should absolutely use and refer to your brand guidelines when designing your website, the core of your digital identity. 

If you don’t have a website, we can help. With Domain.com’s WebsiteBuilder, you can get online quickly and easily. And while our AI-powered site builder helps make life a little easier by getting your site design started, you retain full control over customizing your site to support your brand identity. 

So what are you waiting for? Get started today. 

Your brand is what makes you and your business unique — if it could be distilled down into something tangible, we’d venture to call it your “special sauce.”

Your brand is a first impression — the first impression that customers and potential clients will have of your business. You don’t get a second chance at a first impression, so make it count.

The good thing is, you don’t have to go at it alone. We’re here to help you understand what it takes to craft the perfect brand and take it to market in our two-part guide to branding.

What Is a Brand?

Your brand comprises many things: It’s your business and website colors, your logo, the products and services you offer, and the way you present your business online. It’s the feeling someone gets when they hear your business or domain name, and it’s what they think of you as they browse your site. And yet, that still doesn’t fully capture what your brand is.

In essence, your brand is the summation of every single touchpoint a person can have with your business and what they think about you. That includes your site, social media, products and services, logos, your business’s mission and values, the way you speak to your audience on your site and in your blog, and how you provide customer service.

You can build and work on elements of your brand to influence it; however, keep in mind that it’s just as much what someone thinks of your business as it is the elements you can control, like your logo and colors. Ultimately, your brand lives and dies in the eyes of the consumer.  

To get a bit more technical, let’s look at how Merriam-Webster defines “Brand.” They say it’s a “class of goods identified by name as the product of a single firm or manufacturer, a characteristic or distinctive kind, and a public image, reputation, or identity conceived of as something to be marketed or promoted.”

Why Are Brands Important?

Your brand sets you apart from the competition. When all else is equal, a customer’s brand loyalty is the deciding factor in where and with what business they choose to transact. Jeff Bezos once said, “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.”

So, what do you want your customers to say about you? And how can you influence it? Let’s explore different elements of branding that you can work on to craft the perfect brand identity.

Elements of Branding

Your brand isn’t entirely within your control. You see, it’s a living, evolving thing. You set the foundation upon which it grows: Deciding on a domain and business name, your logo, your colors, and your typography. Then, it evolves as people and customers interact with you, get to know your products and what type of service you provide, and when they buy into your mission and values as a business.

Business and Domain Name

Names affect brands, but how?

A good name lends trust and credibility to your business, to your brand. A good name is one of your company’s most valuable assets, and if you don’t believe us, you need only look to one of the largest businesses of our time, Starbucks, to find out why.

Starbucks co-founder, Gordon Bowker, tells us how Starbucks got its name in an interview with The Seattle Times. He says, “We were thinking of all kinds of names and came desperately close to calling it Cargo House, which would have been a terrible, terrible mistake. Terry Heckler [with whom Bowker owned an advertising agency] mentioned in an offhand way that he thought words that begin with ‘st’ were powerful words. I thought about that and I said, yeah, that’s right, so I did a list of ‘st’ words.

Somebody somehow came up with an old mining map of the Cascades and Mount Rainier, and there was an old mining town called Starbo. As soon as I saw Starbo, I, of course, jumped to Melville’s first mate [named Starbuck] in Moby-Dick.”

There you have it — Starbucks was named, in large part, due to the perceived strength of the “st” sound that begins its name.

“Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.”

Jeff bezos

Words can indeed cause people to feel different things depending on the sounds in the word. Christopher Johnson, Ph.D., a verbal branding consultant known as “The Name Inspector,” discusses these sounds or “rhythmic contrasts” in words in his book MICROSTYLE The Art of Writing Little.

Did you know that business names can be thought of as either feminine or masculine depending on the sound or rhythm of the word?  He uses the examples of Chanel, a “feminine brand name”, and Black & Decker, a “masculine brand name”, as explained below.

The name Chanel is an iamb, meaning it consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one (shə-NEHL or chaNEL.) “Iambs tend to sound lighter and softer,” Johnson writes, while “… trochees tend to sound heavier and harder.” Black & Decker is an example of a trochee; those consist of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable (BLACK & deck-ER.) He notes that “Most people ‘feel’ this difference even if they find it hard to pinpoint.” Keep in mind that means people will feel a certain way about your business name, probably without realizing it, so put some extra thought into naming your business.

Choosing the right domain name should be part of the process of selecting your business name. Both will support your brand, and for consistency, they should be as similar (if not exact) as possible. Successful businesses in this day and age require having an online presence, so a website (and therefore, domain name) is a must.

Here’s what else you should keep in mind when deciding on the perfect domain name for your brand:

• Does it pass the radio test?
  • If someone were only to hear your domain name in passing on the radio and never see it written out, could they navigate to it? If the answer is no, consider going back to the drawing board and choosing another name.
• Avoid unique spelling, punctuation, or excessive numbers.
  • For starters, it won’t pass the radio test. Do you really expect people to remember that instead of the letter “I,” you use the number “1” in your domain name? Or that you have approximately five hyphens and three numbers in your domain? No, you can’t reasonably expect that. And if people can’t remember or spell your domain name, the chances of them getting to your website are slim.
• Make it memorable.
  • Try to keep your domain name short. The longer it gets, the more chances people have of mistyping and never reaching your site.
• Buy alternate misspellings of your domain name.
  • This helps in two ways:
    • If there are common misspellings of your domain name, purchase them to ensure you get any traffic from people who mistyped your correct domain.
    • It prevents competitors from purchasing misspellings of your domain name. If your competitor owns those misspelled alternates of your domain, they can redirect traffic from there to their own site.
• Consider a new domain extension.
  • Is .com really king? It’s well known, and people recognize it, but nowadays, there are thousands of domain extensions that can help you get the perfect domain name.
  • Starting an online store? Try .store. Opening a yoga studio? Try .yoga. There is a domain extension for just about everything, and these TLDs can help add context and memorability to your domain name.

Business and Brand Logo

Humans are visual creatures, so hook their attention with a good-looking logo.

Why are logos important? Just like with domain names, a good logo is a calling card for your brand. Your logo should be memorable and unique enough that when people see it, they instantly think of your brand and don’t confuse it with another.

There are various types of logos, ranging from strictly visual (think abstract logos like Chase Bank) to mascots (used by many sports teams), emblems (law firms or universities), and lettermarks and wordmarks (like CNN or Google, respectively.)

Domain.com uses a variety of logos, like you see below, to help support our brand. 

When designing your logo, keep the following tips in mind:

• Leverage white and empty space. 
  • Your logo doesn’t need to look “busy” to communicate your brand.
• Rely on your business’s color palette. 
• Where will your logo be displayed? 
  • You’ll likely need different versions or sizes so that it looks good on your website, in your emails, and on social media. 
• Relevancy is key. 
  • Your logo is representative of your brand, don’t forget that. 

With Domain.com, it’s easy to create a professional logo to support your brand. All you need is a name, and Domain.com’s LogoMaker will instantly create hundreds of logo options for you to choose from. Then, you can customize everything from colors and fonts to icons and more. 

Sign in to your Domain.com account today and select “Business” at the top of your control panel to leverage the power and design capabilities of LogoMaker. 

Color Psychology and Branding

Designing a website can be a lot of fun, especially when you use a tool like WebsiteBuilder, which does all the heavy lifting for you. That gives you more time to focus on the creative aspects, like the color palette your business and site uses. 

Your brand’s color palette can affect the way people interact with you. This is due to color psychology, or “the study of hues as a determinant of human behavior.”

Certain colors lend themselves to specific associations. In Western culture, we say that green is the color of envy and think of blue as relaxing and meditative. The color black, for example, is believed to represent wealth and prosperity in Eastern cultures and is foreboding and threatening in Western cultures. 

Domain.com’s primary color is Carmine Red, as you see below. We chose it to help us create a strong, bold, and energetic brand expression that helps us stand out and build recognition. 

From there, we selected an accompanying functional color palette — one that’s monochromatic and leverages greyscale to add a stark contrast to our primary color. 

Go into your color selection with an idea of what you want those colors to exemplify. For Domain.com, we embrace a minimal and clean color palette to allow for deliberate emphasis on bold visual elements. Our colors are meant to inspire and drive action, to help the Doers out there get more done. 

Font and Branding

A successful brand understands that different fonts send different messages to their audiences. So choose your fonts carefully — no one wants to send the wrong message to their audience accidentally. 

There are hundreds and hundreds of fonts available to you, some you can find for free, and others require purchase. However, most of the fonts you’ll want to use fall into the following categories:

• Serif
  • Serif fonts are distinctive due to the flourish or decorative stroke at the end of the letters (both horizontally and vertically.) These fonts generally give your site and brand a more formal tone. 
• Sans 
  • Sans fonts add no serifs, or decorative strokes, to their letters. In fact, in French, “sans” means without. These fonts give off a modern and straightforward vibe. 

Domain.com uses Lato for its branding, choosing it for its flexibility and bold, modern style. 

What are you thinking about using for your brand? Why? Let us know in the comments!

Customer Service, Values, and Branding

A consistent customer experience is at the core of your brand. To put this into perspective, let’s look at Starbucks again to see what they’re doing right. 

Whether or not you’ve had their coffee (and with over 28k locations, we’re betting you have), the odds are good that you’ve heard of Starbucks. How did they get to be so big and such a well-loved brand?

The intelligent minds at Starbucks realized that their brand, their business persona, was in the hands of their customers. Understanding that, they’ve since done everything they can to enhance the public’s perception of them positively. 

Starbucks trained its partners (what they call their employees) to greet you when you walk in the door and know that it should only take 3 minutes from that moment until you get your drink. I don’t know about you, but a cheerful greeting and expedient service are likely to make me think more fondly of a business.

Starbucks provides a consistent experience. You’ll find similar menus across most of their locations, all of which are easily identifiable by the green siren logo. Not to mention, that logo is one of the world’s most recognizable logos. Their locations are comfortable, inviting, and positioned as a “third place” — a place between home and work that’s welcoming and relaxing.

Starbucks’ mission statement is, “To inspire and nurture the human spirit — one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.” They live this mission in their stores, and it’s reflected in the materials they choose to share on social media. They do such an excellent job of living their mission statement, and so it’s how their customers think of them — it’s the heart of their brand.

What would happen to the Starbucks brand if they decided to double all their prices, increase the wait time for drinks, and hire only surly service workers? Those wouldn’t be changes to the material goods they offer, but changes that affect the customer experience. Their brand would undoubtedly suffer because it lives in the eyes of the consumer.

Have you ever been to the Starbucks website? In our original definition, we said that “Your brand is the summation of every single touchpoint a customer can have with your business and how they think about you.” Websites are customer touchpoints, and Starbucks’ site is designed to reflect their commitment to their mission statement and ease of use.

We understand that you may not have a Starbucks-sized budget to run and market your business, but you can still cop a few of their tactics to grow your brand. Put your customers first, provide a good and consistent experience, and live your mission statement.

A Successful Brand Is a Successful Business

Take the time to focus on building and crafting your brand before launching your business in the market. 

Structural elements like your logo, color palette, and typography and fonts keep your brand consistent and robust. These core pieces work together to make your brand recognizable wherever it appears. 

Once you’ve nailed your structural elements, you can approach your brand’s more flexible and creative elements, like selecting what photography and illustration to use on your site. All of these things help communicate a broader range of emotions, showcase your products, and create clear points of view for your customers. 

Ready to work on your brand and bring your business to life? Domain.com has all the tools you need, so get started today. 

Now comes the hard part (as if leaving behind the security of your regular job wasn’t hard enough). Along with the thrills of being your own boss comes the burden of having to manage everything on your own. 

Suddenly, you’re a CEO, a designer, a social media manager, a customer service representative, and an office administrator. Throw in client meetings and chasing vendors for payments and you’re cruising toward burnout.

The good news is you don’t have to do it all on your own. With the help of technology, you can take your mind off mundane tasks and get some free time to focus on making your solopreneurial venture profitable and scalable. 

Online Tools for Solopreneurs

Here are some tools you need to make your solo journey a smooth-sailing one.

Create a Website 

First of all, you need a website to create an online presence to help prospective clients or customers find you and connect with you. 

Creating a website doesn’t have to be an expensive affair but it’s definitely one that needs thorough research and attention to detail. Start by thinking about what purpose you want it to serve and then assemble the tools you need to get it up and running.

If you find the prospect of creating a website intimidating, relax. Creating a website is an easy process when you use WebsiteBuilder. To start, answer a few questions and Domain.com’s AI-powered WebsiteBuilder will select the right layout, along with initial images and content for your site. If you’d prefer to work with a professional to create your site, Domain.com can help with that, too. 

Website Hosting

Domain.com offers powerful and reliable hosting plans ranging from your basic hosting to more complex plans for eCommerce and high-volume sites. Additionally, they offer WordPress hosting, which is among the most versatile tools offering various templates for different kinds of websites. 

Domain Name

Next, you will need to register a domain name that people can use to find your website. An ideal domain name is:

• Similar to your company name so as to strengthen your online branding.
• Short and simple enough to be memorable and easy to type.
• Indicative of your industry or nature of business.
• Creative enough to stand out from competitors.
• Readily available to use and free of trademark protections.

Consider using new domain extensions that can not only be more affordable but can also make your domain name more meaningful and contextual. For instance, you can use .store for an online store, .tech if you are a coder, programmer, or web designer, .online if you are going to take online classes, or .space if you need an online space to display your art.  

Analytics

You will also need tools to provide data that measures the success of your website in terms of the traffic it is receiving from different sources, conversions, and bounce rates. Google Analytics is a free tool that offers most services that a solopreneurial venture would need, but you can also opt for paid tools such as Ahrefs and SEMrush that can provide more complex data such as in-depth competitor analysis and backlink monitoring. 

Task Management and Communication

Being a one-person army is never easy. You need tools that can help you plan and organize your tasks, track workflows, track the amount of time spent on different jobs, and set up reminders. Fortunately, there is no dearth of online tools to help you in this department. Here are some of our favorites.

Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 offers all the tools you know and love to help you establish and run your business. Need to reinforce your brand with a professional email address that matches your domain name? Microsoft 365 has you covered. They also offer the tools you’re already familiar with, like Outlook, Word, Skype, and more. From cloud-based document management to virtual meeting software, you have everything you need to manage your business when you use Microsoft 365. 

Google Workspace

Stay on top of all your tasks with Google Workspace. Whether you need to stay in touch with your customers and clients or share documents with partners and employees, you can do it all with the tools they offer. And there’s no need to worry about confusing set up, domain verification, or toggling between Domain.com and Gmail. Google Workspace is completely integrated with your Domain.com control panel, allowing instant access so you can get down to business, fast.

Todoist

Todoist offers a host of features for different types of workers from creative professionals to freelancers to techies to business owners. It allows you to list and prioritize tasks and subtasks, segregate them into different categories, and set deadlines and reminders. You can also track your progress through productivity charts and earn points for completing tasks. 

Monday

Monday can easily be integrated with other apps such as Google, Dropbox, and Slack to set up automated workflows and help you save time. It also offers different viewing styles such as kanban, graphs, and charts so you can pick the one that you find easiest to read and understand.

FreshBooks

FreshBooks is particularly useful for freelancers as it also provides tools for managing finances, time-tracking, and setting up estimates and timelines for projects. The invoicing tool ensures that you get paid on time while its collaborative project management tool makes it easy for clients to share feedback, so you can be on the same page at all stages of the task.

Accounting and Invoicing

Managing your business accounts can be the most daunting task for solopreneurs, especially if you’re not from a finance background. Hiring a bookkeeper may not be within everyone’s budget. But there are a number of online tools, from simple to complex, that you can use to take the load off your hands and learn a thing or two about accounting. 

Wave

This free software offers simple yet useful money-management solutions, making it ideal for small solo businesses. Its best feature is easy-to-create invoices, but it also helps you visualize your cash flows and stay on top of payments. If you want to manage your credit card payments through the app, it charges you a basic fee of $3-4 per transaction.

Xero

For more complex accounting needs, especially for those pertaining to online stores, Xero offers all of the services that Wave provides along with seamless integration with other apps that can help you automate workflows. Other useful features include inventory tracking, bill payments, bank account connections, tax calculations, financial reporting, and file sharing.

Social Media

As a solopreneur, you may not have a big marketing budget, but you can harness the power of social media to build your brand, connect with your audience and even sell your products. However, managing multiple social media accounts is no mean feat. 

That’s the reason why big companies have teams dedicated purely to social media. Not only do you need to understand the platforms well, but you also need to know your audience behavior, post on multiple accounts, and have the design and writing chops to create beautiful creatives and catchy captions. Sound intimidating? It doesn’t have to be, we’ll explain below. 

Analytics Tools

The best part about using social media platforms is that you can use their native tools (Facebook Ads Manager, Instagram Insights, and Twitter Analytics) for gaining useful target audience insights, such as demographic information, learning when they’re most active, and to discover how they’re engaging with your posts. You can even estimate the reach of your ads based on the cost and the time frame of your posts. 

Social Media Management Tools

Instead of setting up multiple reminders for posting on different accounts, you can use apps such as Hootsuite, Sprout Social and Buffer to run multiple accounts from a single platform, schedule future posts and receive advanced analytics.

Content Creation Apps

Social media is nothing without stunning visuals, but don’t fret if designing isn’t one of your strong points. You don’t even have to enroll yourself in an online Photoshop or video-editing course (although those skills are always useful in the long run). With the help of apps such as Canva, Wordswag, and VSCO Cam, you can create beautiful content with pictures, text, and other design elements to take your social media game to the next level. 

Start Your Solopreneur Journey Today

Don’t let the burdens of being a solopreneur dissuade you from taking the journey. Armed with the right tools, hard work, and willpower, you can enrich your life with meaningful work that resonates with your passion, reap the benefits of well-deserved rewards, and live life on your own terms. 

Author Bio

Alisha is a Senior Content Marketing & Communication Specialist at Radix, the registry behind some of the most successful new domain extensions, including .STORE and .TECH. You can connect with her on LinkedIn and Twitter. 

There are millions of published blogs — over 570 million, and that number keeps growing. And nowadays, it’s easy to start a blog with no technical knowledge. 

If you have a passion for beauty, skincare, and appearance, then creating a beauty blog is a great outlet for you. With a blog, you can share your passion with the world, earn income, and potentially make a name for yourself in the industry. 

The beauty business is booming and is anticipated to grow annually at 5.1%. The sooner you get started and make your mark, the better your chances of establishing yourself as an essential part of the industry. 

Today, we’re talking about how to create a beauty blog. From planning, creating, branding, building, marketing, and best practices — we’ve got you covered. 

Keep reading to learn how to start a beauty blog step-by-step. 

Start a Beauty Blog

Beauty blogs are popular and there are quite a few out there you can look to for inspiration before starting your own. 

Why do people start beauty blogs? There are many reasons, but here are some of the common ones:

• Connect with a wide audience of other beauty aficionados.
• Provide tutorials on how to achieve the perfect look.
• Build a brand.
• Become an authority in the beauty industry.
• Earn an income doing something you love.
• Inspire confidence in others.
• Access to exclusive or limited edition merchandise and samples.

What is your motivation to start a blog? Your reasons and motivations will help inform the type of blog you ultimately create and the audience you target. 

How to Create a Beauty Blog

You wouldn’t build a house without a framework, and the same thing is true for your blog. Now that you’ve had some time to think about your motivations and reasons for starting a blog, it’s time to plan. 

There’s no right way to plan your blog — some prefer good ol’ pencil and paper and others prefer to keep their plans online. If you choose the latter, consider using a tool like Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. Both offer the ability to create, edit, and track documents from wherever you have an internet connection. Your plans are your blog’s roadmap, so you’ll want to keep a record of them to refer back to and make adjustments as your blog grows. 

What kind of planning is needed to start your beauty blog? Let’s look at what it takes. 

Decide on Your Audience and Niche

We see a lot of first-time bloggers fall into the trap of thinking that they’ll make waves and draw lots of visitors by creating a broadly generic blog that “appeals to everyone.”

But here’s the thing… nothing appeals to everyone. 

If you want to establish a well-known and trusted beauty blog, start small and identify your niche. Doing this allows you to define your target market and create content for your blog that resonates with your readers.

Let’s work on defining your niche. Your niche is “the industry or genre that you specialize in and the types of products or services you offer.” 

Beauty is a great place to start, but it isn’t your final niche. Think of beauty as a large, overarching category comprised of many subgroups. 

Are you an expert on eye makeup? Is your take on beauty inspired by your culture or how you identify?

Representation is important, so for example, your blog could focus on “Indian beauty” or “Trans beauty.” Even those niches could be further refined. Perhaps your beauty blog isn’t about everyday looks and instead focuses on extreme makeup tutorials. The more you narrow your niche, the more your blog will benefit. 

What Are Your Goals?

What do you hope to accomplish with your beauty blog? Take some time to think about your goals and how your blog can support them. 

Want to make revenue? That means you’ll need a hosting plan that offers eCommerce functionality. Just hoping to make connections in the biz? A more basic hosting plan could do the trick. 

At this point, it’s okay to keep your goals high-level. However, as you work on your blog you’ll want to create smaller S.M.A.R.T. goals to keep you on track. 

Building Your Beauty Blog

So, are you ready to turn this blog idea into a reality? 

To create a tangible blog you need two core things:

1. A Domain Name.
2. Blog Hosting and Building. 

Domain Names for Your Beauty Blog

Ever heard the saying, “The first impression is the last impression?” Your domain name is the first impression someone will have of your blog, well before they ever land on one of your posts or makeup guides. 

Now, we’re going to hazard a guess and say that, as a beauty aficionado, you understand a thing or two about appearances and impressions. Don’t you want your first one to be good?

With that said, let’s explore some domain name options. 

You really have two choices when it comes to a domain name for your beauty blog:

1. Purchase and own your domain name. 
   1. Example: yourblog.com or beauty.blog
2. Use a free subdomain that belongs to a larger business. 
   1. Example: yourblog.othercompanyname.com

Of those two options, which do you think is the better choice for making a good impression? The one that emphasizes your blog and your brand — or the one that advertises for another company in the domain name? 

Obviously, we think the first option is the better choice for anyone looking to establish themselves as an authority in the beauty blogging sphere. 

When you register your domain name, you’re its sole owner for the duration of your registration period. Domain name registrars offer multiple-year registration lengths, and good domain registrars offer a way to auto-renew so you never lose your domain name. 

Getting a free domain name sounds too good to be true… because it is. 

If you run a quick online search for “free blogging platforms” you’ll see a plethora of results. These services are great for the casual blogger who doesn’t intend on growing their blog into their own business or brand. When you create an account with one of these services they offer a free domain name, but be aware that what they’re giving you is really a subdomain. It’ll look something like this: yourblog.bloggingservice.com. 

Why is that an issue? Well, if you want to move your blog to another service, you don’t get to take that domain name with you. That means you’ll have to start from square one all over again. 

And what if you want to monetize your blog by running ads? Most free blogging platforms don’t give you an option to do that or they might give you a small percentage of the profits from the ads that they run on your blog. Doesn’t sound like a fair deal to us. 

Tips to Choose a Domain Name

When it comes to choosing a domain name, you can get as creative with it as you can with your makeup. 

While it’s true that .com is the most popular domain name, it’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the wide array of available domains. It’s also notoriously difficult to get the .com you want because it’s been around so long that many highly desirable .coms have already been registered. 

So what are these other domains you should consider? For starters, there’s .blog. That one seems pretty straightforward. Is your blog going to focus on tutorials and makeup guides? There’s .academy, .camp, .expert, .guru, and .info, and we’re only just beginning. 

No matter what domain name you choose, keep the following things in mind:

• Make it memorable. 
  • Keep it short and don’t get unique with your spelling. 
• Think about keywords.
  • Your readers will likely find your blog via an online search. Help those search engines know you exist by targeting the keywords your desired audience would use.
• Pass the radio test. 
  • If someone were to hear your domain name on the radio and never see it written down, could they make it to your blog? Keep the hyphens and irrelevant numbers out of your domain name. 

Your blog is an investment in your future. While searching for the perfect domain name, you might come across some domains that are more expensive than others. Those domains are probably premium domain names. Premium domain names have already been registered, but whoever owns them has made them available for purchase.

Premium domain names are often short, memorable, and keyword-rich, and are perfect for brand-building. While they may cost more upfront, they’ll renew at regular rates, just like the average domain name, and they’ll only grow in value. 

Once you’ve selected your domain name go ahead and register it. There’s no “holding” or “dibs” on domain names — what’s available today may not be available tomorrow. 

Blog Hosting and Building Options

You can build and host your blog without any technical knowledge, we promise! If you want to build your blog by coding it, that’s an option, too. 

WordPress

WordPress is an immensely popular choice for building websites and blogs. It’s a free open-source software that can be used and edited to build your site, and it powers 39.5% of all websites. 

Depending on your skill level and technical know-how, you can either work directly with the WordPress code to build your site, or you can customize a WordPress theme. WordPress offers a great deal of flexibility and customization options, so even if you use a popular theme, your blog can differentiate itself from the rest. 

At Domain.com, we offer a few different WordPress hosting plans for your beauty blog. 

WP Live

If you’d like in-depth guidance and one-on-one support while working on your WordPress blog, our WP Live plans are the perfect fit. With WP Live, you get unbeatable WordPress help from experts who customize sessions based on your needs. Live screenshares and step-by-step walkthroughs make it easy to follow along and solve issues fast.

And we don’t stop with set-up assistance. When you use WP Live, you’ll receive the following features:

WordPress Hosting Plans

Want to use WordPress but don’t need as much assistance as our WP Live plan offers? We’ve got you covered. 

Domain.com offers two WordPress hosting plans: WP Starter and WP Essential, both of which offer unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage, a customized control panel, and a plethora of pre-installed themes and plugins. 

Our hand-picked selection of popular WordPress themes are sure to start your blog off right. With a multitude of customizable options, you can edit these themes to build a beauty blog that reflects your brand. And to optimize your initial setup, we automatically install and configure your WordPress website with some of the most helpful and widely-used plugins.

WebsiteBuilder

Getting your beauty blog online has never been easier. With Domain.com’s WebsiteBuilder, you can build your blog in minutes. 

How does it work? 

No time to waste wading through hundreds of templates? WebsiteBuilder has you taken care of. Our intelligent technology starts your blog design for you. Answer a few quick questions and our AI-powered builder will select the right layout, including images and initial content, for your site.

There’s no need to fret with code when you use WebsiteBuilder. Its mobile-responsive templates offer built-in design protection to help ensure your blog’s look stays consistent and professional across desktop and mobile devices. 

Did we mention that it’s just fun to use? Our drag-and-drop functionality and image library (over 550,000 images for you to freely use!) make editing enjoyable. Or you can also upload your own images and logos to make your site completely personalized. We’re pretty serious about security though, which is why every WebsiteBuilder plan includes an SSL certificate to ensure your data stays safe. 

And if you want to grow your beauty blog into an eCommerce site where you can sell your own makeup line (dream big, amirite?), WebsiteBuilder is there for you, offering everything you need to scale your online business. 

Beauty Blog Content and Marketing

Once you’ve built your beauty blog, it’ll need some content. 

Content is what engages your audience and keeps them on-site and interacting with you. As a beauty blogger, your content opportunities are as endless as your creativity. 

It’s a best practice to create a content calendar, somewhere you can track all created and upcoming content to help you stick to a schedule. When you post consistently, your readers take note and will come back to your blog time and time again. Search engines are also fond of a regular content cadence or content updates. 

Consider using cloud-based software, like Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, to create and maintain your content calendar. This way, you’ll have access to view and edit it wherever you are and can share it with others if need be. 

Beauty Content Ideas

What type of content should you create? 

Blog posts are essential to success, but don’t stop there. Multimedia content is your best friend in such a visually-driven niche. Videos, infographics, GIFs, tutorials, and guides all appeal to your audience. 

Here are some suggestions to spur your imagination:

• Product Hauls
  • What are you shopping for? Share your latest finds with your audience and give them all the deets — where’d you get it? Why? What does it do?
  • There are many ways to frame your haul, from seasonal hauls to specific-look hauls, your options are endless. 
• “Get the Look”
  • “Get the Look” type makeup tutorials are immensely popular! How many times have you seen a celebrity or influencer and thought, “I wish I could do my makeup like that,” or “I wonder how they get such clear skin”? If you haven’t, your audience certainly has!
  • Not sure what looks to cover? Engage your audience by asking them and give the people what they want. 
• Product Reviews
  • Pretty self-explanatory. Buy a product, use it, and review it. 
  • Be helpful above all else. Sure, you can take two seconds to tell someone you did or didn’t like a product, but how does that help them? Tell them the why behind it. Did it make your skin super oily? Did it cause a breakout? Hard to blend? As you provide more information, your audience can make more informed decisions about what they purchase, and they’ll thank you for not wasting their time or money. 
• “Empties”
  • Okay, so why on earth would you want to share empty and used-up products with your followers? Because there’s no better testament to how much you loved that product! 
• Recurring features
  • Monthly favorites
  • Weekly steals
  • Recurring features lead to recurring visitors, so give them something to expect and look forward to on a regular basis.

Content Marketing

There’s one thing to always keep in mind when marketing your beauty blog: You are your biggest champion. 

Want people to share your posts and tutorials? Ask them. Need subscribers? Ask them.

Your beauty blog is only part of your brand. We recommend supporting it with social media accounts where you can share your content, connect with like-minded individuals, and grow a larger audience. You don’t need to have a social media presence on every platform, but make sure you’re present in the channels that your audience uses. Instagram immediately comes to mind as a great option since it’s such a visually-forward platform. 

Pro tip: Your social media handles should match your domain name for branding consistency. 

Email marketing is another great way to keep your audience engaged. Include an email sign-up form on your blog so that you can share new blog posts or recently-published content with your subscribers. 

And last, but certainly not least, focus on your SEO!

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it’s essential if you want to be found via online search engines. Now, it may sound counterintuitive, but SEO isn’t about optimizing search engines. Instead, it’s about optimizing your site so that it performs well in search results. We put together an SEO cheat sheet so you can create perfectly optimized posts, check it out here. 

Monetize Your Beauty Blog

You’re putting a tremendous amount of thought and hard work into starting a beauty blog — why not make some money from it?

Remember, this isn’t usually possible when using large, “free” blogging services. If you’re hosting your blog and own your domain name, it’ll be a lot easier to monetize your blog.

To start, consider including ads on your blog. You can do this either by working directly with advertisers or by creating an account with Google AdSense. 

If you choose the former and want to work directly with advertisers, then make it easy for them to contact you. Create an Ads Page on your blog that details important information for advertisers like your site traffic, views, and demographics, and mention what ad spots you have available. Don’t forget to include your contact information. You can then share this page with your desired advertisers while pitching your blog. 

Start Your Beauty Blog Today

Ready to create your beauty blog? We’re excited to see it.

Once you’ve created your blog, drop a link to it in the comments below. We’d love to hear about your process and learn more about your experience. Don’t hesitate to share any tips or tricks you learned along the way, too. 

Yet, when you find yourself staring a new year in the face, it can be tough to decide on a resolution (much less multiple resolutions.) Should this be the year you take up yoga or kickboxing? Have you been meaning to get into meditation? After 2020, we could all use some TLC.

If you’re like most of the people we’ve talked to, you’re focusing on personal health and improvement. But why stop there?

This year, why don’t you resolve to improve your website? Whether it’s for a passion project, hobby, or small business, your website could use a little TLC too. Use the following suggestions to improve your site and attract more visitors.

A New Year’s Website Checklist

1 – Contact Information

You want your customers to trust you. If they don’t, do you honestly think they’ll do business with you?

What kind of image are you projecting if you don’t provide any contact information so they can reach out to you with questions? Contact information provides security for potential customers — it lets them know that you’re available if they have any concerns.

There are many ways to include your information on your site. Consider adding it to the footer of each web page, creating a dedicated “Contact Us” page, or creating a pop-up form where people can submit questions.

2 – Security

People will be alerted if your website isn’t secure and that leads to a loss of trust. Would you feel comfortable providing your personal or financial information to a site that’s been flagged as “Not Secure”?

Websites that don’t have SSL enabled are marked as “Not Secure” across many browsers. If that’s not the first thing you want people to see when they type your domain name into their browser bar, invest in SSL.

3 – Call-to-Actions

Attention spans aren’t quite what they used to be. Instead of making site visitors guess and figure out what they need to do on your site, tell them what to do.

Want someone to sign up for your email list? Ask them via a signup form. Want them to purchase your goods? Include a “Buy Now” button with your product descriptions.

4 – Domain Name

Having the right domain name can make a world of difference for your website and your business.

Make sure your domain name is easy to understand and avoid hyphens and creative spellings. If someone were to hear your domain name on the radio and not see it written out, could they make it to your site? If your domain name doesn’t pass the “radio test” consider updating it to something better.

5 – Content

Content is essential to websites and the Internet as we know it.

If you want to sell your goods, connect with your customers, and rank higher in search engine results then your website needs content. This can include a blog, notices and updates about your business, new product listings, and more.  

What makes for good website content? We go into detail on that in this post.

6 – SEO

Don’t let the name fool you, search engine optimization isn’t about optimizing search engines at all. SEO is all about optimizing your website so that it appears higher up in search engine results.

Wouldn’t it be nice to see your site listed as the first result to a Google query versus having your site stuck on the third page of the results?

Our beginner’s guide to SEO is perfect for getting started quickly.

7 – Reliable Hosting

If your website is down you’re not doing business. It’s that simple.

Don’t settle for a mediocre website host. You can’t afford to take hosting for granted if your business depends on online transactions.

Do your research to find the best hosting package and website host for your needs.

Domain.com offers a variety of web hosting plans to fit your needs, all of which include the features seen below.

8 – Social media

How many people do you know of that aren’t on social media? Likely, very few.

Everyone is on social media these days and they’re connecting with brands and businesses through these platforms. Make sure your website includes social media buttons so that your visitors can connect with you after they’ve left your site, ensuring that you stay top of mind.

9 – Mobile Friendly

Mobile traffic has increased by 222% in the last 5 years. Mobile internet users outnumber desktop internet users, and this is something you must account for when creating and designing your website.

Good website builders offer mobile friendly website templates that you can use and modify to create your site.

10 – Internal Links

Internal linking is part of a well-developed SEO strategy, but we thought it was important enough to single out. An internal link connects one page of your domain, or website, with another page of your domain, or site.

Internal linking helps with the navigation of your website, gently pointing people to related content. It helps with your page authority and ranking power on search engines, too.

If you’ve noticed, we’ve linked other relevant blog posts and website pages throughout this article and that’s what internal linking is all about.

Make Sure Your Site is Ready for 2021

Whether you’re just starting your first website or are a website pro, Domain.com has the tools you need to get online quickly and easily.

Our AI-powered WebsiteBuilder takes the stress out of website creation — just answer a few questions and our intelligent builder starts the design for you.

Need an extra hand with getting online? Our experts are here to help you build a beautiful site from start to finish.

Do you want to make the most out of your website — increase your conversion rate, improve your SEO, and have the most engaging content? Because to do so you’ll need to audit your site on a regular basis.

In this post, we’re covering ways you can perform a review of your site so you know what’s working and what needs improvement.

How to Perform a Website Audit

Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

In order to successfully audit your site, you need to know three things:

1. What a website audit entails.
2. Who your ideal audience is.
3. What your goals are.

The first because, well, how can you perform an audit without knowing what it is? And the second because your site should be designed with your ideal audience in mind. Any improvements you make to your site based on your audit should make life easier for them, not harder. Finally, you need to have identified your website goals. The improvements you make to your site should support your goals (e.g. – increase conversions by 5% month over month.)

Many people and online resources will tell you that a website audit has everything to do with SEO. While that is a large part of it, your site is more than just an SEO machine and we have to look at the bigger picture.

We appreciate BluLeadz’s definition of a website audit. They say that “a good website audit takes into account all the factors that can influence your website’s success: From your perspective, your customer’s, and Google’s.” Considering Google held 88.47 percent of the search engine market as of 2019, their perspective and opinion of your site is absolutely crucial to your success. Your customers’ perspective is essential, so part of your audit will revolve around reviewing the user experience of your website. And of course, your perspective is vital. Who knows your goals and motivations better than yourself? Now is the time to make sure your website is aligned to support them.

Website Review and Audit Tools

It’s difficult to determine where you should begin working on your site if you don’t have a solid understanding of how it’s currently performing. It’s best to first perform your audit and then plan your improvements based on the results.   

A good thing to do at the beginning of every website audit is use a tool built for that specific purpose. You can find both free and paid website audit tools by doing a quick Internet search. Many free tools require that you provide an email address in exchange for their services (it’s called lead generation), or you can pay for a tool to provide a more in-depth review of your site.  

Website Grader

HubSpot created a popular tool, Website Grader, that provides information on your site’s performance, mobile-friendliness, security, SEO, and more. Check out Domain.com’s grade below.

What isn’t pictured here is the plethora of information you’ll receive by starting your website audit with this beginner-friendly tool. You can use the insights from the audit to hone in on the areas where your site needs the most or immediate work. In fact, the last section, titled “What Should I Do Next?” lays it out for you.

Google’s Site Audit Tools

Google offers multiple tools to help you review and understand your website. Here are three of their resources that can best assist you with your audit.

PageSpeed Insights

The name, “PageSpeed Insights,” is pretty telling isn’t it? It’s a tool that “reports on the performance of a page on both mobile and desktop devices, and provides suggestions on how that page may be improved.”

Insights ranks your webpages using a numeric grade — 90+ is a fast page, 50-90 is middling, and anything below 50 is without a doubt a slow webpage.

Note that this tool only reviews the webpage URL that you supply, not your entire website at once. Depending on the size and complexity of your site, it may not be feasible to enter the unique URL for each and every one of your webpages.

Maximize the efficacy of this tool by identifying the most important pages on your site and reviewing those first. You can figure out what pages are most important and receive the most traffic by using heatmapping tools, or by utilizing the next Google tool in this list.

Google Analytics

Analytics provides an incredible amount of information and insight into your website. If you’ve never used it before, here’s a great beginner’s guide to Google Analytics to help you get started.

Now, some of you might be wondering why we’re focusing on this tool since it provides in-depth information on your site visitors’ behavior. But think about it: Your site visitors’ behavior, in large part, correlates to the quality and efficacy of your website and its content.

Have a slow loading site? You’re going to see some big bounce rates and small dwell times. People won’t hang around waiting for the page to load; instead, they’ll leave and find another faster loading website that suits their needs.

Google Analytics helps you identify your most popular and well-trafficked landing pages. These could be the pages that people are landing on from search results, other sites, etc. most often. Consider running these pages through the PageSpeed Insights tool to make them as good as can be before moving on to less trafficked pages.

Google Search Console

Once upon a time, Google Search Console was known as Google Webmaster Tools. We like the newer name, because it speaks to this tool’s purpose: to help you “…monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your site’s presence in Google Search results.”

If you have a website, you can benefit from Search Console. It’ll tell you things like:

• How often your site appears in Google search results.
• What terms and queries people search by that lead to your site in the results.
• Indicate any issues you may be experiencing with indexing.
• And more!

Google provides instruction on getting started with Search Console here. The information and insights you gather from this tool will be instrumental in improving your website’s SEO and overall success.

Questions to Ask During a Website Audit

Going into things blindly isn’t a great plan. This is especially true for your website audit.

Before spending a lot of time with the resources we mentioned in the last section, make sure you know what questions they’re supposed to be helping you answer.

Auditing Your Website for the User Experience

Your website’s user experience is integral to its success.

When you create a user-friendly website, you’re really inviting those users to stay longer, interact more, and hopefully, convert (that just means they take the action you want for them to take — purchase, sign up for email, etc.) on your site.

To audit your site for user experience, ask yourself the questions below. (Bonus: Many of the improvements you’ll end up making for user experience will directly improve your SEO!)

• Do I know my target audience?
• Are my CTAs (call-to-actions) and content geared toward my audience?
  • Good CTAs are effective. They are clear and deliberate in telling someone what action to take.
• Is my marketing funnel optimized for these users?
• Is my site’s load time too slow or experiencing any issues? (If so, it could mean the answer to the following question is “Yes.”)
• Are my site visitors bouncing?
  • Follow up by looking into their dwell time.  
• Is my site mobile responsive?
  • If your site doesn’t display well on mobile devices, you’re missing out. As of the end of 2019 mobile devices drove the most website traffic, coming in at 52.6%.
  • This is also important for SEO because Google uses mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal.
• Does your site navigation make sense?
  • Once someone lands on your site, will they be able to easily find what they’re looking for and move around?
  • Here’s an (admittedly extreme) example of a site with terrible navigation.

• Is your website design up to par?
  • If your site looks like it walked straight out of the 90s then you’re in trouble.
• Do you have a lot of broken links?
  • It’s a bad look, and your visitors won’t think of your site as reliable.
• Is your contact information easy to find?
  • We recommend making it available on every page, even if at the footer.
• Do you have any intrusive pop-up ads or is your site cluttered in ads?
  • Use a browser in incognito or private mode to get a sense of the ad experience for your visitors. 

Audit Your Website for Technical Issues

A technical audit helps get down to the nuts and bolts of your website: Are the systems and technologies working, or are they not?

• Is my website secure?
  • SSL is integral to the security of the information exchanged on your site.
    • Without SSL, information passed from an end-user (site visitor) to unsecure sites (like during a purchase or email sign up) and vice versa isn’t encrypted. This means it can be intercepted by lots of bad actors out there on the Internet.
  • Secure websites are favored by Google in search results.
  • Browsers display whether a site is secure or not, and that can make all the difference in a visitor’s trust (remember, they’re your potential customers.)
    • Below are examples of sites with and without SSL.

• Is your personal information protected from the Internet’s prying eyes with Domain Privacy + Protection?
  • Keep your site safe from both hackers and human error.
• How does your site display across the most popular browsers?
  • Test your site across all the major browsers so there are no surprises or bad experiences for your visitors. Make any necessary changes to improve how your site renders on these browsers.
  • Don’t forget to test the mobile versions of these browsers!
• Are you using a CMS (content management system) like WordPress?
  • If yes, are you using the most up-to-date and secure version?
  • Audit any plugins to make sure they’re running the newest versions and don’t pose security issues. Remove any no longer needed or used.  
• Is your site backed up?
  • Before making any big changes to your site, you should create a backup. Wouldn’t it be terrible if something went wrong while making updates to your site? Without a backup created of your site, that can equal lots of heartache, time, and lost revenue. 

Audit Your Website for SEO.

An SEO audit helps you optimize your website so that it performs well and ranks higher in SERPs, search engine result pages.

• Do you have a sitemap created so that Google and other search engines can easily crawl and index your site?
• Is your robots.txt file accurate?
• Are all the pages on your site optimized according to the various SEO ranking factors?
  • Moz provides a run-down of different On-Page SEO ranking factors here.
• Are you using appropriate and relevant SEO keywords across your site and content?
• Do all your pages have title tags and meta descriptions?
  • Title tags and meta descriptions are HTML elements that appear in the header on a web page. When a page shows as a search result, its title tag and meta description normally display right along with it on the SERP (search engine results page.) This is important because it can influence whether someone clicks through to your site from the SERPs.
• Is your website accessible?
  • Do your images have alt text?
• Do you have any broken or misdirected links?
  • Domain.com’s resident SEO expert, Mike, thinks SEO Minion, a free 3^rd party SEO tool, is good for checking broken links. Please note, this is not a Domain.com product or resource.
• How many backlinks do you have?
  • Backlinks are links created when one website links to another. You may also hear them referred to as “inbound links.”
  • Are they quality backlinks?
  • Moz created Link Explorer, a free tool to help you identify your backlinks and provide other link metrics, but it does require that you sign up for a free Moz account.
  • SEOquake is another 3^rd party tool (free plugin) that offers great insights into your SEO.
• Is your URL structure optimized?
  • URL structure matters to both search engines and the people visiting your site.
  • Here’s Search Engine Journal’s guide to an SEO-friendly URL structure.

Wrapping up Your Website Audit

Auditing your website can seem overwhelming at first. If that’s the case, break it out into smaller sections and complete them one by one. It could take a few days or a few weeks, but either way, audits are necessary for the success of your site.

You should plan on auditing your website at least a couple of times each year. For more complex websites, consider auditing them more frequently.

Reviewing and auditing your site will give you a leg up with search engines, your customers, and your competitors.

Did you have any other tips or recommendations for auditing sites? Let us know in the comments!

Creating a website today is rather easy.

You have the website building toolkits, hosting services taking care of all the server management, and useful guides and walkthroughs to get things done. All of this information overflow can make your head spin. So, what should you focus on first?

Let’s look at the top 5 things you should know when starting a website this year.

5 Things to Know When Starting a Website in 2021

1. Choose Your Domain Name Wisely

According to Wikipedia, “a domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control within the Internet.”

Keep in mind that your website’s domain name is the first thing that your visitors will see. Pick something that reflects your site’s purpose, that’s easy to remember, and preferably short. If you already have a business name in place, then use that with a combination of a domain extension.

Most domain names consist of two major parts; top-level domain and the second-level domain. For example, on our website Domain.com, the “..com” is the top-level domain, and the “domain” is the second-level domain. The most popular top-level domains, according to Wikipedia, are .com, .net, .org, and .info domains.

You might find that the major top-level domains are unavailable with the second-level domain name that you desire. In this case, try to pick something else that makes sense or make creative use of another top-level domain. Instead of using a .com domain (f.e. ordervegetables.com), you can use an .online domain (f.e. ordervegetables.online).

You can find out which domain names are available for you through our domain name search.

2. Research the Best Website Layout

According to internetlivestats.com, there are over 1.5 billion websites live today. You can guess how hard it is to make your website unique and different from others. It’s also essential to have your site looking modern and up-to-date.

There are ways to build your website as user friendly and conversion oriented as possible. Color psychology, eye movement theory, and top-notch copy, among other things, are all there to assist you in creating a website in 2021. You can find many guides and applications to help you when you start building your site.

Also, make sure your webpage is accessible by the majority of devices. The easiest way to achieve this is by building your webpage in HTML5 markup language. HTML5 supports most of today’s popular devices and browsers, and there are tons of guides and step-by-step tutorials out there. From an HTML5 Periodical Table by Website Setup to a full course from Codecademy where you can Learn HTML.

Before you delve into theories and practices, you should know what your website is going to be about. In other words, what do you want to say to your visitors? What are the most important aspects of it? And what do you want them to do next?

3. SEO Matters

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is making your website relevant, authoritative, and up-to-date in the search engines’ eyes. In simple terms, SEO makes your site attract more visitors.

According to internetlivestats.com, there are over 40,000 Google searches every second. Can you imagine that? And there are more than a few popular search engines out there, although none of them as popular as Google.

There is a lot of competition around keywords that attract the most number of visitors, and nowadays, almost everybody is focusing on SEO. But, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t focus on optimizing either. At the very least, we recommend putting in the effort so that people directly looking for your brand or company can find you.

Of course, you can go further than that and add a bunch of neat tricks and tips that you can find on the Internet. You can start from Google Adwords’ built-in keyword research tool to get a sense of the keywords in your space.

Going further really depends on your budget. You can create your copy and webpages targeting specific keywords, or hire an SEO specialist to help you. However, one thing is clear; in 2021, it doesn’t hurt to know a thing or two about SEO.

4. Get a Fast and Reliable Hosting Service

It’s no secret that your webpage’s loading speed affects your visitors’ bounce rate. A study lead by Google found that if your webpage takes more than 3 seconds to load, then the bounce rate will increase over 50% compared to the loading time of under 3 seconds. That’s huge!

Apart from the speed and uptime, you should also consider different hosting options from shared hosting to dedicated servers. Your hosting choice is very dependent on your budget, potential traffic, and the planned size of your website.

Make sure that your hosting plan supports your ideas for the website; WordPress, advanced databases, root application development, or anything else.

Check out Domain.com’s Shared Hosting plans.

5. Don’t Forget the About Us and Contact Pages

Apart from your homepage, your visitors are most likely going to look at your website’s profile and ways to contact you. Even if your main page contains the same information, these pages help to create trust in your visitors. This holds especially true when you’re a company providing a service or selling goods.

However, don’t overthink it too much and keep them looking professional and on-point. There’s no need to quote the entire history of your company or list every employee’s contact information unless there’s a reason for it.  Usually, some clean copy and a call-to-action will suffice to make these pages work for you.

There are tons of guides and tips out there for building those pages, but make sure you pick out the ones that resonate with your website the most.

Ready to Build Your Website?

That’s it, the top 5 things to focus on first when starting your website. Focus on these tips first, and you’ll have a strong base for your website this year.

What else should we know when building a website in 2021? Let us know in the comments.

Author Bio

Gert is a professional copywriter and mainly works with digital marketing companies in the US and EU. You can reach him on LinkedIn.

2020 wasn’t kind to traditional retail models — malls and main streets have seen declining foot traffic for years, and the Coronavirus pandemic isn’t helping.

So, what’s an aspiring business owner to do?

Luckily, brick-and-mortar isn’t the end-all-be-all of business models. Instead of investing in a physical property, consider taking your small business dreams online.

Today, we’re taking a deep dive into dropshipping. It’s a great way to start your online business both quickly and easily. In fact, with dropshipping, you can start your business for as little as it costs to create and host a website.

In this guide, we’ll discuss the following questions and topics:

• What is dropshipping?
• What are the pros and cons of dropshipping?
• How do I find a dropshipping supplier?
• How do I determine what products to sell?
• What kind of website do I need for dropshipping?

What is dropshipping?

As you begin researching how to start an online business, you’ll come across the term “dropshipping.” But what does it mean?

Dropshipping is “a streamlined form of retail business wherein the seller accepts customer orders but does not keep goods sold in stock.” That may seem a bit confusing at first… how are you supposed to sell products when you don’t have any inventory? Is it a scam?

Hardly.

The dropshipping eCommerce model takes the fulfillment of customer orders out of your hands. Instead of paying for an inventory that may not sell and the storage fees to house it all, you’ll get your customers’ orders fulfilled at the source. This is usually done by a wholesaler, manufacturer, or 3^rd party vendor (i.e. – “dropshippers”), who’ll manage packaging and shipping the product to the customer. 

Dropshipping example

Renata is a makeup artist living in New York City. She wants to grow her career in her industry. In addition to teaching people how to enhance their natural beauty, she wants to provide them with the makeup and tools they need. As she researches how to start a business, she realizes she has a big problem. Where is she supposed to store all the goods in her 300 square foot apartment? Property is expensive in the city, and she can’t afford to take out a new lease for storage space.

Enter dropshipping. All Renata needs is an eCommerce website where she can adopt a dropshipping model. She selects the products she wants to sell, and every time someone orders makeup or tools from her site she passes that order along to the dropshipper. They then package and ship the item to the original customer. In this scenario, Renata never touches the product (and this process doesn’t have to be disclosed to the end buyer, so they’ll be none the wiser.)

The pros and cons of dropshipping.

Dropshipping, as convenient as it may be, isn’t for everyone. If you’re trying to determine the best eCommerce model for your online business, consider the following pros and cons. 

The benefits of dropshipping.

• There’s a low barrier to entry — all you really need is a website.
• When you choose to pursue dropshipping, you’re freeing yourself from the worries and obligations of manufacturing, inventory, fulfillment, leasing space, and staffing, thereby saving yourself from those substantial expenses.
• You have a greater ability to test products in the market. Since you aren’t buying products in bulk to store and sell, you can quickly adapt and change your offerings depending on market interests. If something isn’t selling, switch it out!
• It’s almost like having a passive income stream. In a traditional retail model, you’re responsible for every aspect of the transaction. With dropshipping, you can focus on other aspects of your business, like marketing, while customers shop your site and a 3^rd party fulfills it.
• Work from anywhere when you dropship. Want to work from the comfort of your couch? Go for it. Prefer a typical office environment? You can do that, too. Like working from exotic locations? That’s doable as well. You can be anywhere in the world and rest assured that your products are reaching your customers.
• No issues with logistics. Worried about having too much inventory to move? Or not enough in stock to meet demand? You don’t have to worry when you dropship — these issues are all taken care of on your behalf.
• You only pay when your customer does. With dropshipping, you only pay for products that your customer has already ordered and paid for, so you’re not losing money on stuff that doesn’t sell. 

The cons of dropshipping.

• There’s a low barrier to entry — all you really need is a website. This looks familiar, we know because we also listed this as a “pro” for dropshipping. Since the barrier to entry is so low, many people can start a dropshipping eCommerce business. If you’re using the same dropshippers and selling the same goods as everyone else, it’ll be difficult to stand out and succeed.
• There can be quality issues. Take this “con” with a grain of salt. If you don’t do your research and choose a poor dropshipper with a less-than-stellar reputation, you’re likely to have issues with your products. This issue can be avoided by researching your suppliers before entering into any agreements with them.
• Your products can change, and you’ll be none the wiser. Your supplier may decide to start using cheaper materials to craft products, or different packaging materials, and you’re likely not to know about it until a customer complains or asks about the change.
• You bear the brunt of customer returns. As a business owner, it’s your responsibility to handle customer complaints and product issues. If someone decides to return a product, they aren’t sending it back to the dropshipper, they send it back to you. You’ll be responsible for providing any refunds unless you have a no-refund policy (n.b. — that might not sit well with potential customers.)
• Shipping times can be lengthy. Amazon Prime, Instacart, and many other services offer near-immediate gratification with super fast shipping. Consumers understand that they may not get the same lightning fast shipping with a small business, but if your dropshipper is located on the other side of the world it can take weeks for products to arrive. Either choose a dropshipper with faster shipping times or be very transparent about shipping times prior to purchase. 
• If you’re selling the same products as everyone else, you may end up paying more for your SEO keywords to try and get a leg up on your competitors. 

How do I find a dropship supplier?

As with most things nowadays, an internet search is a good place to start. If you aren’t finding many options by searching “dropshippers” try going beyond page one of the search results, or expanding your search with other terms like “supplier” or “eCommerce distributor” along with terms relating to the products you’re interested in selling. 

Take time to review the dropshippers you find — have other customers left reviews? If so, do they trend positively or negatively? Find out what their average shipping time is, and always, always read any contracts thoroughly before signing. 

Can’t find what you want on the Internet? Don’t fret — just contact the manufacturer of your desired goods directly. Those manufacturers can provide you with information on their vendors and dropshippers, and perhaps even set up a connection. And then there’s always the possibility that they’ll work directly with you, so don’t hesitate to ask!

If you really want to make sure you’re choosing a reliable manufacturer and dropshipper, consider ordering some of your potential products for yourself and testing them out.

What kind of products should I sell on my eCommerce site? 

Want to know what kind of products you should be selling on your eCommerce website? Well, it depends on your market and more specifically, your niche. 

You aren’t going to succeed trying to be a jack-of-all-trades. Amazon and Walmart already exist, and as a small business owner, it’ll be hard to compete. 

Do your research instead of allowing your personal passions and interests to dictate your products. What does your ideal customer look like? By targeting a niche and understanding their spending habits, along with other demographics, you can cater the perfect selection of products to entice them into purchasing from your site. 

Another big thing to keep in mind is that you shouldn’t be thinking in terms of your own pocketbook. Just because something may seem a little too expensive for you, doesn’t mean there aren’t people out there willing to pay that amount. This is why market research is vitally important to your success. 

Need some ideas to start identifying products you can sell? Take a look at the following suggestions. 

• Items geared toward hobbyists. 
  • Hobbyists and side-hustlers are booming right now, and there are many who’d pay a pretty penny for a desirable item in their niche. 
• Clothing and accessories. 
  • People purchase clothing at unprecedented rates. If you’ve got an eye for style and trends, and know your market, this can be a lucrative path to follow. 
• Repeat purchases or subscriber products. 
  • What’s better than making a sale? Making multiple recurring sales. If you sell subscription products or products that need to be replaced often, you’re in a good position. 

What kind of website do I need for dropshipping?

Wondering what kind of website you need so that you can start your business? You’ve come to the right place, we’re experts on websites (and domains, obviously.)

When creating your website, you need to build it with the future in mind. If your thought process is something along the lines of, “I don’t have any customers yet, I’m going to get the most basic thing I can find,” then you’re not planning for your business growth or your future. 

If cost and pricing worry you, they shouldn’t. You can create great websites for less than the price of a couple of coffees. 

Here are things to consider when planning and creating your website:

• What is my domain name going to be? 
  • Your domain name is like the digital address for your site, and oftentimes the first impression someone has of your site. 
  • A good domain name is short, memorable, and relevant. Too many hyphens and random numbers, and no one will remember it meaning they won’t get to your site. 
  • Maybe you’ve heard that .com is king, but that isn’t necessarily true. A key tenant of a good domain name is relevance, so perhaps consider a .store or .shop for your eCommerce site. 
• Can you sell products with the plan you select?
  • Not all quick website creation plans offer the ability to sell goods and services online. Make sure yours does. 
• Hosting and bandwidth. 
  • As your website grows and gains more online traffic, you want to make sure everyone visiting your site has a good experience. If you don’t have great hosting or enough bandwidth for your visitors, it can make for a poor experience. (Think slow-loading pages and pages timing out.)
• Do I want to create it myself or hire someone?
  • At Domain.com, we offer a smart WebsiteBuilder that helps you get online with ease. Answer a few quick questions and our AI-powered builder will select the right layout (including images and initial content!) for your site. Don’t waste your precious time wading through tons of templates — let us help. 
    • It is important to compare the features and select the plan that best fits your needs, however for anyone intending to create an online store, the eCommerce Plan is going to be ideal. Not only does it include everything needed to sell goods, services, or even downloads of digital goods online, but also priority support to help ensure any issue you experience is resolved as quickly as possible.
  • Would you rather someone help you through the process of creating your website so you can focus on other aspects of your eCommerce dropshipping business? We can do that, too. Our experts can build you a beautiful site from start to finish, provide a strategic marketing plan that’s tailored to your needs, and teach you how to manage your site for long-term success. 

Ready to launch your eCommerce business?

We’re excited for you! We hope you’ve found this guide to dropshipping helpful, and let us know in the comments below if you have any questions. We’d also love to hear about what has and hasn’t worked for your eCommerce site so we can all learn from it. 

We wish you the best of luck and let us know if you need any help with creating your site — we’re here to help!

Have you started making your lists and checking them twice? Nailing down who gets what, whether they’ve been naughty or nice?

You’re probably planning to spend time with family and maybe you’re this year’s host.

What does it take to be a host for the holidays? Quite a bit!

You should be able to provide food and drink and most importantly, have a place that can accommodate all the friends and family coming over to celebrate. No one wants to have Thanksgiving at Uncle Jimmy’s house where there’s standing room only (but no one has the heart to tell Uncle Jimmy.)

Why are we discussing website hosting this holiday season?

Well, website hosting is a lot like regular hosting. We’ll explain.

Your web host is the physical location where your website lives and your domain name is the address that leads to that location.

When people visit your site it’s just like people visiting your home. If they can’t all fit inside then some will end up waiting, others will leave instead of uncomfortably waiting, and they’ll have a bad overall experience.

So this holiday season, if you’re planning on running sales and offers to attract more customers, consider reviewing your hosting package first. Make sure all the extra visitors can “fit” into your site to ensure that your website doesn’t go down during this critical time.

Domain.com’s hosting packages

Here at Domain.com, we offer multiple hosting packages to make sure you have the best fit for your site. Our hosting is powerful and reliable (over 99.9% uptime!) and the plans are scalable so they can grow with you and your site traffic.

Our Basic Hosting plan is perfect for a simple website and one domain name. If you’re not expecting much traffic to your site this holiday season and don’t run an e-commerce site, this plan is a good fit for you. You’ll still receive unlimited storage, free SSL, and more.

If you have multiple sites or are planning on creating multiple sites as you grow your business then you shouldn’t settle for anything less than our Deluxe Hosting plan. This hosting plan also comes with free SSL, unlimited storage, 25 databases, and 25 FTP logins.

Are you a web pro or are your sites heavily trafficked? Our Ultra Hosting plan is the best solution for you. You’ll receive an unlimited amount of websites, storage, scalable bandwidth, free SSL, and more. Check it out on our site today.

What if I prefer WordPress hosting?

You’re in luck because we offer that, too.

You can create your site with WordPress and enjoy unparalleled speed, security, and support with Domain.com.

When you choose one of our WordPress hosting packages you’re choosing to make life easier on yourself. That’s because you can select from any of our curated selections of mobile-friendly themes, pre-installed plugins, and a customized user-friendly control panel.

Our WP Starter plan offers unlimited storage and bandwidth, a customized control panel, and the aforementioned themes and plugins. When you choose our WP Essential plan you’ll also receive maximized site speeds, SiteLock professional security, automatic malware removal, and WordPress expert support.

Make sure everyone has a seat at the table

Optimizing your website hosting for the holidays ensures that everyone has a seat at your holiday table, or in this case, website. You don’t want your site to come crashing down during the busiest sales season all because too many people were trying to enter it at once.

So get your domain name and website hosting from Domain.com today, and be the talk of this year’s holiday season.