This will be the first in a series of articles that will walk you through the steps of starting your very own Internet marketing business. Articles in the series will cover registering a domain name, building a web site, and where and how to host your new Internet marketing web site.

If you’re planning on starting an Internet marketing business you will likely need a web site. All web sites need domain names so let’s start the lesson with domain names.

This article will teach what a domain name is, and how to buy a domain name.

What is a domain name Simply put a domain name is the unique name that will identify your Internet marketing web site. It’s what people will type into their Internet browser to locate your Internet marketing business.

Your Internet marketing company’s domain name will contain two parts. The first will be the actual name which is will typed immediately after ‘www.’ and the domain name suffix such as ‘.com or .org’. For example my company domain names are www.AskBigPapa.com or www.RodneyGoldston.com.

Selecting a domain name First you will need to decide what you want your domain name to be. I suggest making a list of possible names, as you are not likely to land your first choice. Domain names can contain letters, digits, and hyphens.

Your best bet is to find a domain ending in .com, as that's what most people will remember. You aren't able to use any spaces or special characters in your domain name, although hyphens ( - ) are allowed.

Try to keep your domain name short and catchy, so that people can remember it.

Registering domain names Once you’ve decided on a domain name you will need to check for availability. You can use just about any domain registration service for this. For purposes of this exercise we will use www.godaddy.com.

Click here www.GoDaddy.com and at the very top of the page you will see ‘start a domain search’. Type your desired domain name into the box, without spaces, select the suffix desired (.com, .org, etc.) and click go.

That’s it. If your desired domain name is available do not hesitate to buy it, because it could literally be gone within the minute. Consider there are actually millions of people all over the world searching for domain names each day. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that your idea for a domain name is that unique and someone else is not searching at the same time you are.

Internet marketing is very popular these days and premium domain names can be hard to come by. It may take you several attempts to find a name that’s available.

One last word of advice, think outside of the box. Your domain name does not always have to describe what your business does. Make up a word or use a phrase that has nothing at all to do with your Internet marketing business. For example the word yahoo is not descriptive of anything that Yahoo! actually does. Except that I’m sure the company executives yell it out each time they get a paycheck.

Good luck with your search and check back soon for the next article in the series ‘How to build a web site’.