If you have decided to purchase your domain name, there are a few things to consider. If you can buy your name with “.com” that would be considered the best as this is what most people are familiar with and will remember. It is also important to not have a domain name that is too long or complicated, as this can be challenging to remember and can be a pain to type in. Unless you are a very successful artist, you shouldn’t worry about buying similar domain names to yours. Most companies that you would buy a domain name from are fairly similar in function and price point, but it is always good to look around. If you can, buy your domain name from a company that is local to where you are living. Since there are so many companies on the Internet to buy domain names from, one of the best things to do is to ask someone you know which company they have used and if they’re happy with the results. This seems to be the best, as this area on the Internet seems to be vast and hard to judge. Being in Canada, dotcanuck was recommended to me. The more years you buy your name for, the cheaper it is. It is important not to forget the date it does expire because when it does, anyone can buy it. So if you wait, you may lose your domain name.
As for hosting service, it is a good idea to not buy it from the same company as your domain name. If you ever need to change hosting service, sometimes directing your new hosting service to your domain name can be difficult, especially if you weren’t happy with their service and didn’t leave in good terms. There are a ton of hosting services out there, and some can be pretty sketchy. As with an interview I conducted, it was described as “the wild west”. Look for an established company with descent reviews and a price that is affordable. Going with a company that’s not too big will hopefully allow you to be able to communicate with them easier and more directly rather than with a large company. Again it is great to purchase from a company as local to where you are, as if you are needing any technical support they will more than likely have operating hours similar to the times you’ll be working on your website. Bluefur is a Canadian web hosting company and comes to me as a recommendation. Ask them what their up time is. They should have a guarantee of how much they are up and running, and your looking for one that is up 99.9% of the time. Have a site that is continually going down can be frustrating for yourself as well as the people trying to view your site. This could turn away visitors. Technical support is a big consideration when choosing a hosting service. If you are not paying for a high-end service you do have to accept that the tech support will be more limited. Email support is common with lower priced service. You’ll have to pay more if you want telephone support. With an artist website, depending how you want it to function, email support may be enough, as you may not have the urgency as another kind of website might need. You’ll also have the option of a shared server or your own private server. A shared server is considered to be technically less secure but shouldn’t be a factor for an artist’s website. The cost of a private server isn’t worth it at the level most artist websites are at. Consider how much space, how many gigabytes you are getting since a large majority of an artist website is usually images and/or video.
No comments:
Post a Comment