I Bought a Domain Name Now What? Exact Things to Do Next [New]

Are you wondering, I bought a domain, now what?

First off, congratulations on your new domain purchase! :)

So, what’s next? 

In this article, I’ll show you what fun and profitable things you can do with your newly registered domain name. You don’t have to be a technical guy/girl, neither have you to shell a load of money hiring someone in an attempt to do something useful with your domain.

The best thing you can do is start a blog on it…

…a blog gives you financial freedom, live life on your own terms & escape the boring 9-5 schedule and office politics.

Check out my detailed guide on how to start a blog in 7 easy steps or learn more about what is blogging here.

Buying a domain name is a sign you have an address or a place where you can be located on the world wide web (a.k.a internet).

A registered domain can help you set up your online business, build your brand and even if you aren’t ready for anything such, it can help you brand your social profiles.

Yes, you heard that right. 

Let’s see 10 easy and fun (and profitable) things to do with your domain names. 

Each use of domain name mentioned below would cost you less than $100 per year which is the lowest it can be while some specific uses are less than $5 per month and most are totally free.

Ready to start?

Let’s go!

1 Create Your Own Website or Blog Using the Domain

The best use of  a domain after you register it is to start a blog or website on it. A blog is, in case you don’t know, is a place or website that appears when someone types your domain name on the browsers’ address bar.

90% of the domain registrations online lead to a blog of the owner. This can be:

1. A personal blog where you share your ideas with the world,
2. A money making blog (like mine that you are currently reading).
3. Or an online representation of your offline business to reach new customers.

Recommended Reading: 21+ Lucrative Benefits Of Blogging Non-Bloggers Are Missing Out In Life

If you’ve already got the domain name, I suggest you to create a blog (website) around it. Blogging is the best form of online business (leave alone the social benefits of it) and you can quickly make a good income out of your skills and knowledge.

This is a great way to pay off your debts and start a life independently. I say this, because I have done this. Not only did I payoff my loans, I helped my father renovate his offline business (payoff his debt and build a new grocery store) all through my blogging income.

There are tons of ways to make money blogging like monetization through ads, affiliate marketing (some friends I know make as much as $30K per month from their blogs), selling services (freelance writing, virtual assistance etc.) and even creating your own products (works well after you’ve a set of readers or a community). You only need traffic from search engines.

Also read:

• How to join Grammarly affiliate program and get $25 instantly for joining.
• How to earn up to $7500 per sale (and a minimum of $200 per sale) with WPEngine
• 10 Best Search Engines (#3 on the list pays you to search anything online using it!)

So here is what you need to do to build a blog using your domain name. I have divided the whole process into 3 easy steps.

I Bought a Domain Now What? Exact Things to Do Next

1. Get a hosting for your domain

The next thing to do after registering a domain is to buy hosting for it.

If you don’t already know, let me explain you what a domain is and why you need hosting.

A domain is like your address to your offline retail store. And hosting is like the brick and mortar shop where you store your goods to sell (blog posts, images, media files etc). Got it?

Now for the hosting, there are dime a dozen hosting providers. Don’t ever settle with a free hosting or something that is too good a deal to be true. These do more damage to you than good.

I recommend Bluehost hosting (which is affordable) and easy to deal with. I am not a technical guy and when it comes to online business I want a resource/hosting I can turn to when I have a glitch. Bluehost never has let me down on this.

Their basic plan (good for beginners and sites with decent traffic) starts at $2.99/month.

Get Your Hosting Now ››

2. Connect Your Domain to Bluehost Hosting & Install WordPress on It

Now that you have bought the hosting, but you have your domain name bought elsewhere, all you need is to direct the domain name to point visitors to your hosting. You can easily do so by updating the DNS of the domain.

I’ll share the step by step way to do so with Godaddy registered domain (steps are mostly the same if you used other domain registrars like Google domains etc).

Here is how to point your Godaddy domain to Bluehost:

1. Login to your Godaddy domain
2. Click on “manage my domains” from under the quicklinks (appears when you click on your account)
3. Select the domain from the list of domains you own.
4. Click on manage DNS settings on the end of the page.
5. Under the nameservers section, add the following each at a time:
6. ns1.bluehost.com
7. ns2.bluehost.com
8. Save it and your domain now points to Bluehost hosting.

The next part is to install WordPress on Bluehost hosting. You can do it easily by do so by logging into your cPanel and then clicking the WordPress icon there. The process is self explanatory.

After installing WordPress, there is one final step before you can write posts and launch your blog. And that is designing your blog.

3. Design Your Blog

After installation, your WordPress blog will be a pretty basic and raw looking. In order to get more visitors, turn your readers into subscribers and overall give them an immersive experience you need to have a good looking blog.

This is where you need a WordPress theme.

I suggest Elegant themes (they also have a cool Elegant themes discount for you). They are really great in design, come with inbuilt drag & drop editor that helps you build homepage and design your blog without a single line of coding. Check out my in-depth elegant themes review here.

With Elegant themes you get access to 87 premium themes (+ plugins) for just $69 which is less than $1 each. Needless to say, they are the #1 theme sellers in the world.

Click the below button to get your copy of Elegant themes and then install the best theme out of the 87 themes.

Get Elegant Themes (with Discount) ››

This was just the cream of the crop, but if you need detailed guide to start a blog, check out my 5000+ word step by step guide to start a blog.

Post that, you should follow these essential steps after WordPress installation like adding Google analytics etc.

2 Create a Standalone Landing Page

We, here at DigitalGYD, don’t believe in one size fits all rule.

If you don’t want a blog and are still wondering “I bought a domain… now what?”, we have 9 more options for you!

Read on to discover more ideas…

If you aren’t ready for a blog yet, you can create a simple one page website and convert visitors into leads/sales or customers.

Sometimes, you simply want a landing page (a landing page is an online portal, say a one-page website, that has just one goal of converting your visitors and making them do your desired task).

A landing page differs from a website as in you don’t need to update it with content often and it will have no additional attached pages too. The aim of landing pages are to get visitors to land on that page and make them do what is expected of them (like signup for your email list, attend a webinar of yours, buy a product you are selling or book an appointment with you).

What You Can Do With A Landing Page?

1) Get customers for your offline business

Do you have an existing business (like car-repair shop)?

You can create an online landing page and optimize it to rank so that you appear whenever anyone near your city searches for your business (like auto repair shop near me or in San Francisco).

Now they click to your page and get information about reaching to you (maps, phone number, location). Boom you got your customer who would otherwise never know you.

Same goes for any offline business like a beauty parlor, a pet grooming store, a spa.

The landing page technique works well if you offer services (like an attorney general or freelance writer) too.

2) Get leads and sales for your courses, products

If you’re already working online and have something to sell you could use a landing page as a lead generation funnel.

Simply create a landing page focused around the benefit of your product/email course or lead magnet and then ask readers to download them via buying it or giving their email address.

How to Create a Landing Page With Your Domain?

With the advancement of tech, you can create a landing page in minutes and you don’t need to have any knowledge of coding for it. I use thrive landing pages to create landing pages in minutes. Thrive landing pages even as built in (and editable) landing pages for various needs like:

• car repair shop
• restaurant booking page
• appointment page for spas and salons
• course sign up page
• course delivering page
• podcast and webinar signup page
• author? They also have landing pages where you can send visitors a sample chapter of your upcoming book and then ask them to buy your book/info product.
• a blank page to create something from scratch
• Other 160+ pre-built landing pages that fit almost any need of yours.

Assuming you already have bought hosting above, you just need to your copy of thrive landing pages, you just need to redirect your domain to the landing page (or create a blog as in step 1 above and create a page on that blog using thrive landing pages).

Create a Stunning Landing Page in the Next 30 Minutes ››

Note: You don’t need to panic. The team at thrive themes are super super responsive and help you get started with prompt customer care service. Still, you can also comment below and I’ll be there to help you in setting up thrive landing pages. Additionally, you can check out Thrive Theme’s pricing structure too.

3 Get Branded Email Based On Your Domain

Wondering “I have a domain name, how do I get email?”

If that’s an yes, you’re at the right place.

You can simply map your domain with your email address and get a new professional and branded email address.

Having a professional email address makes your contact information more credible, easy to remember and branded.

For example, instead of yourname8648@gmail.com or Sam.somestupidtext@hotmail.com you can easily get a professional yourname@yourdomain.com, contact@yourdomain.com, hello@yourdomain.com and even billgates@yourdomain.com seems to be a good email name idea :D.

You just need to signup for Gsuite (formerly known as Google Apps). It just costs $7.5 per month.

Get Your Branded Email Address Now ››

Another cheap way to get email for your domain is by setting up a free email forwarder.

Related: How to create a professional email address (step by step)

4 Create an Online Portal for Your Offline Business

Like I said in point #2 above, you can have an online portal and funnel more customers that lead to increased sales.

Here is a step by step guide to start your own online store.

5 Freelancer? Create a Portfolio on Your Unused Domain

If you are a freelancer and you’re wondering what to do with your registered yet unused domain, you can create a online portfolio where you can display the works of clients you have done.

If you’re just starting out, you can create simple samples and place them on your website to showcase your potential clients.

Having a website is very essential for a freelancer, I know because I make a living freelancing too. You can view my writer portfolio here.

I have efficiently used my domain to create something that now means business for me.

Here is a step-by-step guide to create a freelancer website.

6 Create Your Own Personal Private Blog

Now, suppose you’re in no mood for serious business online…

But the same ol’ question, “I bought a domain name, now what” keeps nagging you.

So what’s the solution?

Because you are not in a mood to start business and just want to have fun with your domain…

… you can start a complete private blog to share your personal photos and articles with friends and family.

In that case you can do exactly that with your domain.

Follow the steps in point #1 to set up a blog for you. Follow these simple steps to  make it private and non-accessible to anyone including search engines.

Step 1: Discourage search engines with these steps.

Go to settings >> reading >>  Check the “Discourage search engines from indexing this site”

This will only prevent your site from appearing on search engines like Google‘s.

But…

Step 2: People who know your blog address can still visit without your permission. So, to further password protect your site and only allow selected people to view it, use this plugin  (free).

7 Use the Domain for Branded Vanity URL

Sometimes the best use of a idle, unused domain can be to simply make it your branded custom link shortener. If you’re asking what is a link shortener, it is a small, custom domain that is used to shorten any link for the purpose of making it branded and easy-to-remember.

Link shorteners can also be used to track clicks of that particular URL.

For example, my portfolio URL is http://www.swadhinagrawal.com/ which is great but I make it even more sweeter and easy-to-remember with my vanity domain swdh.in so when I have to share my URL with anyone I just give them http://swdh.in.

You can also use this very domain to share articles on the web with a shortened URL like you liked this very article you could use your domain to make the URL like http://example.com/domain-guide or even shorter like http://example.com/shduHt

Here is a complete guide to using your domain names as URL shorteners.

8 Redirect Your Domain to Your Social Media Profiles

If you just don’t want to invest in anything yet want to effectively use your parked domain, you can simply login to your domain registrar’s dashboard and redirect the domain to your social profiles like Twitter profile or Facebook page.

This can be done free of charge.

For example, https://www.facebook.com/swadhinagrawalofficial can become https://swadh.in

9 Try Domain Flipping

If you don’t want to create a blog or anything like it and are wondering I have bought a domain name, now what?

Then, here is another fruitful way to use your domain.

If you have a good domain name you can consider domain flipping or selling. This can be done to recover your money invested in the domain or as a business where you buy many lucrative domains and sell them.

Selling domain names can be done at individual levels but when you have a large sum at stake, you could use established sellers like flippa.com to be on the safe side and ensure all transactions are done legally.

10 Create an Online Store for Your Info-products

If you’re an author or someone who has some products to sell, you can simply use your domain to deploy an online store and sell your products to customers.

Here is a guide to create an online store for selling your products.

You’ve Bought A Domain Name… Now Do This

So, these were the 10 fun (and profitable) ways for everyone wondering what to do with their purchased domain names.

The possibilities are endless, you just have to decide what you have your passion in and what can be profitable for you on the long run.

The best option to use your purchased domain is to make a website/blog around it. Eventually, this can become your own online business and you could add more elements (like online store, landing page etc) to it in the future.

So, what have you thought about using your domain?

Are you still worried about what to do with your domain? Got any idea that I didn’t cover?

Comment below so that we can discuss and I can help you show you how to use your registered domain effectively.

P.S. If you liked this article, you would also like the article 10 mistakes to avoid when building a successful blog from scratch.

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FAQs About what to do with a domain name

Over to you: I have a domain name.. Now what?

So, here are the 10 different ways to use your domain name.

You could either start a blog and earn money with it or flip the domain at sites like Dan or Godaddy to make some quick bucks. One more potential use of a domain lying around can be using it as a vanity URL and redirect it to your resume or social media channels. Redirection can be done at your domain provider.

Another important thing to do after buying a domain would be to register all other top-level domains related to your primary domain along with other domain name extensions so that your brand is secured.

I hope we gave tried to answer your burning question, “I bought a domain… now what?”. If you have any other creative uses of domain names feel free to comment below.