When you set up a new website, you are making a very large investment in a very important part of your new web experience. What am I talking about? Your domain name:  .com, .net, .org — name for your site.

I can’t stress to you how important it is that you set up your domain name properly from the get-go. It is crucial that it is set up in a way that you will ultimately have access to your domain name no matter what happens.

Here’s  the usual scenario:

Very important, very busy business owner is too busy to find out about how to purchase one of these domain name things so they delegate it to “Someone Else” within the company. “Someone Else” purchases the domain name for them. But what does “Someone Else” use for contact information? THEIR personal email — not the email that goes directly to the business owner.

By and by “Someone Else” leaves the company for one reason or another. Hopefully it was an amicable split — because guess who is the only one now who has access to YOUR domain name? Yep: “Someone Else.”

And “Someone Else” doesn’t work for you any more! Bummer.

Here is another scenario:

You took the time to purchase your domain name yourself and used your own email. Yay! You did this part right. But then, down the line, you switch ISP’s and your email changes. You forget that your domain name is registered under your OLD email which you no longer have access to. Bummer again! Remember, if you switch emails, update your domain name before you make the switch so you can verify the change through your old email — that’s where the verification email will go.

The really big downside to both of these situations is this:

You are not getting renewal information if your domain name can’t find you! ICANN doesn’t care who owns a domain name. So if yours expires and someone else purchases it you will be out of luck. Think of all that money you spent in developing your website and marketing your website and having brochures, and business cards printed with your domain name that now belongs to someone else! And if you tattooed your domain name across your forehead Oh boy! Now your tattoo.com points to someone else’s site. Most likely a site belonging to scab who now wants to sell Viagra using your old domain name. And short of offering that scab a bunch of cash for your old domain name (and believe me, it won’t be cheap) you have lost that domain name forever.

Be careful. Protect your investment.

This question would have been a lot easier to answer about 10 years ago. Back in “the day” there was only one go-to place to get your domain name, Network Solutions. They weren’t cheap, either. About $80 per year to register your .com name. Try to register several and you would be racking up a mighty large bill rather quickly. Finding what you wanted for your domain name back then, in the good ole days, wasn’t that difficult. For instance, I wanted lisadesign.com but it was already taken. Hmmmm? What to do? Well, I was in a hurry to start this business, and a little brain dead from all-night feedings with infant twins, so I just tacked an “s” on the end — lisadesigns.com was born. Worked for me. One less thing I had to worry about.

But then! Oh boy — domain name deregulation happened. Suddenly Network Solutions wasn’t the only game in town. Domain resellers started popping up all over the place! Register.com, tucows, godaddy. They were all out to undercut each other in price. It dropped to about $10 per year and hovers right around there now. The sky became the limit for domain names. Everybody wanted one. Everybody bought them. Enterprising entrepreneurs bought them to resell them. The field was wide open. Soon, most everything worth buying was already bought. Sure you can buy from a third party, but you will have to pay for it. Sometimes pay dearly.

So what’s a new website wannabe to do? First, try and see if your #1 choice is available. I just bought www.lonelyrangers.com for my band. Our band was already named The Lonely Rangers. Either I got lucky or our band name was so ridiculous nobody had thought of it before. (Just kidding! I love our band! Hi guys!!) It was a good deal that even though I thought it would surely be taken, I went ahead and checked anyway.

If your #1 choice is not available you may have some options to move a few things around like I did with my domain name and the “s”.

Add the location of your site into your domain name. For instance Motions, a site I do for a local dance apparel store, was already taken. However, our Motions is in Rapid City (hi Google) so we bought motionsrapidcity.com for Motions Rapid City.

If your business name is really long, it may help to abbreviate a little bit. South Dakota Overhead Doors becomes sdoverheaddoors.com

Use a thesaurus or a rhyming dictionary to come up with ideas. I love that Sheilatom.com, one of my first clients, has a sing-song rhymi-ness to it. Sheila Tom Dot Com! She got lucky — she came with that name.

Some theories say to use “power” words like super, mega, plus etc. to make your domain name more exciting. Several of the domain companies listed above have domain generators that will automatically combine words to help you with ideas.

Bottom line is to make sure you try your first choice before you do anything and you may get lucky. If not, don’t despair. Keep playing around with different combinations and ideas. Sleep on it. Make sure the combination of words you are thinking of purchasing don’t combine to spell something else you don’t want associated with your business. Run it by friends, co-workers, even your kids. They might notice something you don’t.

For $10 a pop, you can most likely afford to purchase several of your choices while you mull them around. It is probably a good idea to grab them before somebody else does. Good thing I did. Or we might have had to change the name of our band to the notsolonelyrangers.com

Why indeed? Let me tell you why — because blogs are like internet gold, that’s why. What? What am I talking about “internet gold”? What could I possibly mean? Well, hang tight. I’m going to tell you.

Blogs are the secret to getting to the top of the search engine rankings. And that, as we have discussed before, is the way to a successful website.

But how do they work, these blogs? And why is a blog so important to ranking?

Think of it this way. A blog is a frequently updated, naturally search-engine friendly addition to your website. Blogs are text-rich, link-rich and have very little extraneous HTML. It’s like candy for search engines. They love it.

Check this out. If I write a blog post about Rapid City — anything about Rapid City, South Dakota and start blogging away about this or that thing that is happening in Rapid City and how happy we are in Rapid City and how Rapid City is the best city to live in ever — how many times have I written about Rapid City? How many times have I spelled out R-a-p-i-d C-i-t-y? And how many chances have I given a search engine to find me using the search terms Rapid City? What if I did a blog post a month or a week or twice a week and talk a little about Rapid City? All of those posts get indexed in my blog forever. How many times have I mentioned Rapid City then? It’s like compounding interest for my blog. Pretty soon I have my place cemented at the top of Google’s searches for Rapid City. Lucky me. Smart me.

Wait a minute, you say. If I have a blog what am I going to talk about? What could I possibly have to say that would be interesting? Really, it doesn’t matter. What have I written about so far in this blog? You know about marketing your site, how to resize images, SEO optimization, Friday Fun links to Matt Harding and how to configure your kid’s laptop. Sure all those posts have useful information for you (except maybe Matt Harding) But that isn’t really the point of the blog. Does the content have to be useful, entertaining, engaging? Well, it helps. I am sure people are coming to this site to find out a few things about the specific information I offer. But all that is a bonus for my readers.

The truth is, content wise, it really doesn’t matter– as long as I keep blogging I can talk about underwater basket weaving for all Google cares. I’ll end up being ranked #1 for underwater basket weaving in Rapid City — I mean, come on, how cool is that?

Seriously, what is going to happen is that when they search for a web developer in Rapid City, I am going to be right up there at the top. And that, my friends, is really internet gold.

Updated to add: You’re gonna love this — go to www.google.com and type in underwater basket weaving Rapid City.