All over the world, there are dozens of people starting up their own web sites every day. The Internet is a huge area with room for everyone, but in order to avoid confusion each web site must posses a unique domain name. This refers both to the title of the page and the address visitors will type into their navigation bars to get to your web site.

You have to make sure that your domain name is unique; otherwise you just won't be able to use it on the Internet. There are thousands of domain names already spoken for, so the first step in naming your site will be finding out if someone else has already registered that name.

All you need to do for this step is go to a web site that keeps track of registered domain names. You are going to have to use a domain name registration company at some point, so you might want to find one now and use their database to do your search. If you have not decided on a company yet, then there are non-company sites out there for the purpose, such as VeriSign.

Type in your chosen domain name in the search area; if it's not already taken you are in luck and can keep going. If not, you will have to come up with a new name.

Now it's time to decide on a domain name registration company. There are lots of them on the Internet, and you will have to come up with your own screening process to determine the best choice for you. Price and reliability based on information from previous clients are two important factors.

Once you decide on the company, just go to their site and enter your contact information, the number of years you want to pay for the domain name, and the domain name itself. You can usually decide whether your domain name is going to be public or private; private registration means you might pay some more money but the information attached to the domain name will not be available for public viewing.

Finally, point the domain to the Web server that you are running your site on. That's it, now you just have to wait for everything to become active.