Now it's time to purchase your first domain! How exciting is that? Before you purchase, here's a few things to consider.

Domain Ownership Basics & Best Practices

  1. Owning your domain is the first step to having a website online! We recommend using www.namecheap.com - they are reasonably priced, the back-end is easy to use. Godaddy is great too!

  2. Domains ending in .com are the most common. Canadian domains end in .ca. If you are Canadian, we recommend you get both. You never know what people will try to type in.

  3. Domain registration, ownership, and renewals is 100% up to each client! Brixwork does NOT manage the domain purchase nor renewals for you, as it's your intellectual property. Your accountant wouldn't have your debit card pin # - it's the same dynamic.

  4. We are not responsible for your website/email going down if you fail to renew your domain each year. Most domain providers have an annual renewal cycle, so it's up to you to keep your credit card on their platforms up-to-date, with auto-renewal turned on. 

 

Tips on Picking A Domain Name for Real Estate

A domain name is like your address book on the web, so it must be carefully picked. Here's some things to consider:

  1. We always recommend that you have your own personal name domain (i.e. Chas Woodyer has woodyer.com, and Sylvia Fierro has SylviaFierro.com - it always comes in handy).

  2. Having multiple domains point to one destination is an option. i.e. having a .ca domain point to your .com domain as well. But it does NOT help with ranking on Google at all.

  3. If your name is too common, you can variate it to fit your business. For example, a Realtor® named Chris Brown uses ChrisBrownRealEstate.ca, while Joe Lee has JoeLeeRE.com. Many people will Google your name anyway, so ensure that your bio page has the right data to show up on the results.

  4. The shortness of a domain is greatly overrated! It's better to have a longer but easy to remember domain. Remembering a short 4 letter acronym that means nothing unless the words are memorized is much more difficult than just remembering Chris Brown real estate DOT com.

  5. Some opt to buy a valuable domain from a previous owner - but often very expensive. Assess whether it's worth it for your brand or not. Before you buy a premium domain with "Toronto" or "Edmonton" in there, consider the next point: 

  6. City names or area names in domains have LITTLE to NO IMPACT on Google ranking: 


 

Purchasing your Domain For Your Website

Once you have a few domain names on your wishlist, the next step is to see what's actually available for you and start purchasing. 

  1. Go to www.namecheap.com (recommended) or any other domain vendor of your preference.

  2. Start searching for domains, and pick one(s) you like. You rarely need more than 2 (.com and .ca).

  3. When you picked one (or more) domains you like, proceed to check out.


Pointing your new Domain to Brixwork Servers!

Your domain must point to our servers to activate the website we build for you. 


IMPORTANT: If you already have an existing live website DO NOT follow the below step until your new Brixwork site is ready to go live!



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