A unique domain name. That's one of the first and most important steps that a new home business website builders must consider. All too often, you see websites created with a free host with a domain name that includes the free host company's business name. If you are planning to market your website and internet business as a professional entity, then you really should buy your own domain name. Your domain name gives potential customers an idea of what is inside your website or online store. Owning your own domain also lends an air of 'permanancy' to your business and reputation.

Other reasons why you should buy your own domain name rather than use a free one from a free host:

If you change hosts, either voluntarily or otherwise, your domain name will go along with you and your customer's will not need to be contacted with a new web address.

A good domain name that describes your business or product helps prevent visitors from being confused and clicking on to someone else's site to shop.

Remember to keep your domain short and easy to remember, something easy to spell and pronounce. My first blog domain name was, and still is, too long - 6 words - with hyphens between each word. It drives me nuts to type it, so I can only imagine how visitors feel if they have to type a long winded web address. Cutesy spellings like adding a Z in place of an S in a word is only confusing, and will quickly loose it's cuteness. To help search engine users find you and increase your traffic, do some keyword research before deciding on a domain name. Keep in mind that you can always register more than one domain name directed to the same website. You can use .com, .net, .biz and protect your website from others of the same kind who register their sites with less popular extenstions.

How do you go about registering your own domain name? The host that I use, Homestead , provides the service as part of the package, for a small extra fee to register. You can buy domain names at other hosting companies. Find them by doing a Google search for 'domain registration' or other similar quearies.