Trying to get dominion over my domain (what do I do now)

[justusforus]

So I have a day job but I decided to start a website with a few friends on something we do socially (gambling).  One night I had a brainstorm on a domain name, I went to search and it was available.  I bought the .com and most every other extension and hardly paid anything.  Before I could put the content together, I am already getting interest in the site.

 

I am a total newbie in buying domains and am trying to figure out what to do in what order.  Should I line up advertises, should I put in a store and I might sound really dumb but I am reading all the tutorials where I bought it (Go daddy).

 

Does anyone have any suggestions? 

[Jaypee]

Hi there @justusforus ...  I don't know if there's a protocol or special set of rules to follow when starting a website but this is what I usually do after buying a domain.

1.  Create social media accounts for your domain and secure the matching URLs for it.

                     Example: Twitter.com/matchingyourdomainname  and  Facebook.com/matchingyourdomainname

2.  Set-up your contact details - the email address that you're going to use, determine what contact no. you're going to use, etc...

3. Determine the purpose of your website. (Is it going to be a forum, a blog, an online store?) then create/setup your site.

4. Market / promote / advertise your website.

5. Create a business card.  I dont' know if others are doing this but having a business card with my website online business details on it - helps me a lot in promoting the site to my friends, relatives, etc. when I'm not online.

That's it!  ah yes.. you also need to register a business name (company or corporation) or even trademark your web "brand". Having a legit/registered company will surely help build your online trustworthiness but I guess you can do this later on.

Hope this helps.. Good Luck!

 

[justusforus]

Thanks for the pointers.  My purpose is to have content (blogs, articles) and an online store.  I also like the business card idea and with the 3 of us who started the site, we can probably all work on getting the word out there.

[Nymph]

There really is no correct, fool-proof, be all end all means of setting up a new website. Oftentimes, unless you are doing work for a client or something, it is completely up to the website owner to determine what he or she wishes to implement or work on, and where. You can do anything from beginning with the content, creating or fitting a website theme, start on social media, or practically anything you want to as the first step. Doing one thing first will by no means deteriorate your efforts in another area, and actually, the sooner you get started, the better. You don't even have to have anything set in stone right now. Play around with it until you have something you like.

In the end, though, planning out who will be in charge of the social media aspect, the website maintenance aspect, and the content creation aspect is crucial to your success. Then, it's just a matter of establishing your site on social media and winding out content, maybe even look into advertising on other gambling sites if you have the capital for it, which more often than not works well with storefronts.