Today’s Techie Tip video tutorial will answer a couple of questions I get asked a lot — “How do I create an email address using my domain name?” and “How can I import my domain-based email address into Gmail?”

Why do you need to create a domain-based email address? Personally, I hesitate to conduct business with someone whose email address is BR549@yahoo.com. In fact, nothing against Yahoo! or Hotmail, but businesses that use email accounts from those clients might as well wave their hands in the air and yell “I’m an amateur!” Before you watch today’s video, I encourage you to read this excellent article from Men with Pens about the importance of using a professional email address for our online businesses. An email address for your domain is not hard to set up, and it gives the appearance of professionalism. Continue reading →

After further thought, I was wrong about combining the topics of domain registration and selecting a web host. While neither step (registration of domain or signing up with hosting service) takes much time to physically complete, it will take two separate posts here to give you the necessary background information to help prepare you to complete those steps.

When registering your domain name, you have over 60 characters, several choices of extensions to play with, and possibly countless questions. What to name your site? What about hyphens & underscores? Do you need a .com or .net or .org or some other new and different extension? Where does one get a domain name, anyway? What’s a URL? What does DNS mean? And the question many have wondered for ages, who is WHOIS?

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