What is a domain, and how do I purchase one?

What is a domain?

Check out the top of your web browser: you should see a URL bar. The domain is the primary part of any website's URL. In our case, it's leadpops.com

To launch your own website, you'll definitely need your own domain. Choosing the perfect domain can seem tough, but don't overthink it. Ultimately, pick something you like!

Here are a few best practices for choosing a domain name:

• Make your domain name memorable
  • Ideally it's short, easy to say, easy to type, and follows general English language spelling. And it should be intuitive - make sure it has something to do with your business!

• Use keywords - but only when sensible
  • Having "mortgage" or "loans" is a nice touch, but no need to over do it. "leadpops-does-the-best-mortgage-marketing.com" wouldn't make sense. 

• Avoid anything that's not a letter
  • Hyphens and numbers may lead to errors when leads and clients are typing in your domain.

• In general, .com is the best TLD ("top level domain")
  • .com usually resonates with customers and is more memorable than other creative options. It tends to see higher amounts of traffic than TLDs like .biz, .info, etc.

• Don't worry too much about the age of your domain.
  • Seriously, Matt Cutts from Google says so.  So, if you change companies or rebrand, it's certainly not the end of the world. 

How do I purchase a domain?

When you buy a domain, you do so through a “Domain Registrar” that manages the registration of that domain name.

The process is pretty simple, and there are a number of different services out there to purchase a domain. For most, we recommend GoDaddy. Its user friendly, has good support, and is a solid provider.

Once you've determined who you'd like to purchase the domain from, you'll use their tools to see if your domain is available. No two websites can have the same domain. Again, most services like GoDaddy make this process pretty simple with a search bar on the home screen of their website. They'll even offer similar alternatives if your domain is taken. 

What happens after I buy my domain?

Your domain is not a website, it’s just the “name” of your website on the Internet. You reserved the name, but you’ll still need the actual site. That's where leadPops comes in!

If you haven't already, you can reserve a time with our advisors to see if our website will be a good fit for you. (Pro tip: it's probably a good fit.)

Once your website is under production, check out our guide on how to point your domain to the content we've provided for you.

Bonus:

What is DNS? And how about Name Servers?

To start: every website in existence has an IP address, which is how computers look them up. But to make it easier on us humans, we can get to websites by using domain names instead.

DNS Stands for "Domain Name System." It works like a phone book for computers, by converting the human-readable domains into machine-readable IP addresses.

A nameserver is any server that has DNS software installed on it. But usually, “nameserver” refers to a server owned by a web host that is specifically used to manage the domain names associated with their web hosting customers.

Confused yet? Not a problem. That's why we take care of this for our customers. Here's the recap:

You (the customer) purchase a domain, such as imgoodatloans.com

We help you access your DNS settings via wherever you purchased that domain, such as GoDaddy

We point your domain to our name servers here at leadPops.

Meanwhile, we're building out content for your website. When you give us the green light, we'll launch and voila! imgoodatloans.com now shows your leadPops website. 

What is a subdomain?

 A subdomain is anything that comes before your domain, but after "https://" Typically, subdomains are used if there is content that is distinct from the rest of your site, that you'd like to section off.

In our case here, the subdomain would be support.leadpops.com

There are countless other subdomains. Technically, even "www" is a subdomain!

Typically, adding a subdomain is free. Some services vary but for the most part there are no extra fees associated. 

What about a URL slug?

This is anything that comes at the end of your URL. It should describe what's happening on your page, and can help with your SEO. For this reason, we design our websites with specific slugs for each landing page.

For example, if you look at mortgagepops.com/va-loans , the "slug" is va-loans.