Registering a domain name can be a very straight forward activity ? or it can be labor intensive, stressful and a total waste of your time and hard earned money. With a few simple basic tips and some advance thought, you will be on ?the easy path?.

The single most important ingredient going into domain registration is the critical decision of choosing the right name. Put in the time to do advance research into a name which reflects the general topic and nature of your online business. This will go hand-in-hand with the next element ? keyword selection. There are a number of keyword selection tools available (such as on Yahoo business ? formerly Overture.com, and Google). Combining you keywords and domain name into interwoven terms will greatly help with search engine optimization activities later on.

There is a growing availability of alternative extension variations today. For example, .com, net, org, bus, ws. Info, etc. have all become popular choices. With the explosion of internet traffic and usage this trend will likely continue. However, for the foreseeable future, until you have a widely popular website that receives millions of visitors that will find you no matter where you are, it is advisable that .com be used whenever possible. The com sites still enjoy the largest concentration of search traffic on the web today.

Do a basic search to locate reputable firms to handle your domain registration and web hosting. A lot of literature suggests having two different companies to handle this, rather than one company doing both. While it can be a pain to get this switched if problems arise, personally I have not heard or read of this being a major issue. However, you should check a couple of forums about this topic before starting your registration process.

The pricing and cost for registration and hosting have become extremely competitive. Make sure to shop around for the right combination of price, features, and capabilities of the firms. Pay attention to the details of exactly what is included in the monthly prices (and 1-time fees). While the monthly price may be lower from one to the other provider ? the cost for additional services may far outweigh the initial low prices. Also, the amount of time (duration) of the service agreement can save you lots of money as well. The longer the service commitment, generally ? the cheaper the rate plan. I have found 12-24 months to be a reasonable commitment that yields solid savings.

Regarding the choice of domain names, clearly shorter is better. After all, who can type those long url's without making typos! No to mention shorter names are easier for you and your clients to remember. Also, by choosing domain names relevant to your keywords (and vice-versa) the search engines will reward your site on potential customer searches. It is like have a double bonus! For example having my website name of Internet Marketing USA, tied to keyword searches for internet marketing in the USA a highly relevant match, gaining me additional traffic for this combination of terms.

There you have it, some basic information to guide your domain registration activities. Armed with these tips, you will be up running, getting search engine traffic and revenues in no time.