The Three Pillars of Constructing Your Domain »
It's not difficult to get a web site these days. To be fair, it's never been particularly difficult, but now it's probably easier than it's ever been. I'm sure that it will only get easier as time goes on. Just because you have a web site, however, doesn't necessarily mean that you have one that functions well, however. You need to consider first the ability of others to get to your site, second the ability of visitors to return to your site, third your ability to keep the site running and finally what you will do if you need to move the site for any reason. These aspects of running your site are all related, but it is not always immediately clear how the pieces fit together.
First and foremost, you need a domain name. This is, quite simply, how people find you. Sure, you can get a site on a hosted service, and many of those will offer you the ability to map your domain to theirs. But whatever you do, don't settled for foo.somehostedservice.com, because invariably you will want to move your site, and when you do, you won't be able to take your link mojo with you. Get the domain name and start using it from day one. It'll cost about $10 per year. It's a worthwhile investment so do this first. Yes, even before you have somewhere to put your data, because the two do not have to go together. I'll tell you why next.
