When you plan to start your e-business venture on the Internet, be sure to choose a partner / vendor that can provide you one stop services through various solutions. In this article, we will focus on Step One.

1. Get Your Own Domain Name
Your domain name is your identity on the Internet. Thousands of domain names are registered each day. Grab yours now before it's gone! Even if you do not have a website, you should register your domain name FIRST.

Cost : US$70 for 2 years (.com, .net, .org)

Case Study :
I've come across many domain name related problems, and this if one of them.
One Company in Taiwan, decided to register their domain name, and the Vendor offered them a discount if the name of the domain name owner was set to the Vendor's details. Thus, this company wishing to save money, decided to go with this cheaper option. After 1 year, the Vendor's business was not going well and asked this Company to pay an additional fee to transfer back the ownership of this domain name to the Company. The Company hesitated, and not long after that, the Vendor closed down. In the end, the Company was stuck with a website that they were unable to update (with a domain name that they did not own). The Company had no choice but to only wait until the expiry of this domain name and register this domain name under their own details.

Tips : Be careful with whom you register your domain name with. Some companies might offer you a heavy discounted rate for domain name registration but be careful of these pitfalls:-

a) Your name is not set as the domain name owner in the WHOIS database
- you will lose the benefit of being the legally rightful owner of the domain name and in the event of a dispute, you will be at a losing end.

b) You are charged additional fees when you wish to move / transfer the domain name away

Among the BestSellers for Domain Name include :-

Business.com US$7.5 million
Altavista.com US$3.3 million
Autos.com US$2.2 million
Wallstreet.com US$1m
AsSeenOnTv.com US$5.1 million
Wine.com US$2.9 million
Express.com US$1.8 million
Rock.com US$1m