Domain Names

New research suggests that many small businesses may be rushing their choice for web address.

• The name should be future proof, you should buy several domain name variants to protect your identity, and you should try to tie in your domain name with your "offline" identity.
• If you are buying a .co.uk domain name (e.g. newbusiness.co.uk), make sure you also buy the other main TLD's (Top Level Domains) for the same prefix (e.g. newbusiness.com, newbusiness.net). This will ensure that no-one else can come in at a later stage and capitalise on your brand name using another major domain name type. Although there are dozens of TLD types available, we've always purchased the .co.uk, .com, .net and .org variants to protect our brands. There's no harm buying more variants, but do make sure you take care of the important ones.
• If you do a domain name search and find only the .co.uk is available for your chosen prefix (e.g. newbusiness), it may be worth your while choosing another domain name prefix where most or all of the TLD's are available. We spent quite some time researching suitable domain names before deciding on Bytestart - dozens in fact.
• It is possible that your small business may grow into different areas of interest, or even change tack altogether. For this reason, it may be an idea not to make your domain name too specific to one area of your expertise.

Domain Name Types

• co.uk – the standard UK domain name suffix (essential).
• com – the most popular domain suffix on earth (essential).
• org – organisational domain suffix, global.
• net – short for ‘network’, but used by a variety of websites.
• org.uk – used by organisations such as charities.
• plc.uk - used for UK public limited companies.
• info – a new domain suffix, short for information provider.
• me.uk – individual domain name suffix.
• ltd.uk – used for UK limited companies.
• biz – relatively new domain, a shortened version of ‘business’.
• tv - unsurprisingly, short for "television" - used by many broadcasters.
• eu - European Union suffix.
• mobi - For sites delivering services to mobile devices

What do I get?

• We will help you identify domain name that best projects your business.
• Register your choice of domain names under one supplier.
• Demonstrate user friendly control panel to allow easy renewal.

Transferring your Domain name

Step 1

We will contact your old service provider and ask for the IPS tag if your domain ends with .co.uk, .org.uk, or .net.uk or AUTH code for any other extension.

Step 2

We will recommend and select a new domain name or hosting provider of your choice. Once you approve we'll send you log in details to your nominated email address - this will enable you to access your account.

Step 3

On accessing your account we will help you point your domain name to your existing provider.