You’ve made the decision to take your career to the next level with a personal website from Winning Agent. Congratulations! Your wise choice sets you aside from the pack and will positively contribute to your success moving forward!
Before you can begin to customize your website and establish your online presence you must set up a URL. It sounds trickier than it is! You only need two elements: a domain name and a hosting provider. Let us walk you through the process!
DOMAIN NAME
A domain name is the unique address where your website lives. It’s what you type into your browser as the name of the website you want to visit. Daniel Pataki of Smashing Magazine suggests that the name be short and sweet. Rand Fishkin of Moz concurs and also recommends that the name be easy to pronounce.
Choose a domain name that’s descriptive and easy to remember. A Realtor named John Smith of California specializing in beachfront property may call his website “BeachHousesBySmith .com”. You can also opt for simply putting in your location, such as “HudsonValleyHomes .com”. As long as the domain name isn’t taken and it’s not an existing company, you can be creative! It’s a good idea to make your domain name reflective of your brand.
There are a number of different places you can purchase a domain name. A few of our favorites are:
HOSTING
If your domain is your address, your hosting provider is the mortgage you pay for your website to live there. Fees vary from provider to provider but most hosting providers are quite reasonable, have high customer satisfaction and you can “set it and forget it” by paying upfront for several months of hosting. Two key takeaways for when you’re just getting started are to investigate host reliability and up-time guarantees, and check prices for both sign up and renewal. Up-time means that your website will be operational and available for clients and prospects to access, so it’s critical to make sure your chosen host has a great track record in this area.
A few of our favorite hosting providers are:
Let’s do a step by step walk-through with Bluehost, a trusted sources of domain names and hosting.
First go to their website:
Click on “Get Started Now”
Select your plan. For the purposes of this demo, we’ve elected for PRIME
Put in your desired domain name
If you already have a domain name enter it in (same page)
Once you’ve identified the domain name you want to use and verified that nobody else has it, you will be prompted to the next screen which ask you for personal details and lays out what your plan entails. Create an account, put in your credit card information and you’re all set! You’ll receive an email confirmation letting you know that the order has gone through and your domain and hosting have been secured.
Now that you’ve set up your URL with a domain name and hosting provider, your website is ready to go! You are ready to start crafting an online presence that will showcase your unique brand and be a comprehensive resource for potential clients!
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