Does your home healthcare business have a website? Whether you own a home health agency, a therapy company or a home health consulting business, having a website to represent your brand online is important. The first, easy step is to identify the domain name you want to use for the site, and buy that domain name (especially if it's your business name) before it is too late. Otherwise, someone may buy it before you, and then you may have to think creatively to find a domain name that works for your business.

What is a Domain Name?
Every computer on the Internet has a unique address, like a telephone number, called an "IP address." Since IP addresses are difficult to remember, websites use an easy-to-remember name (the 'domain name'), rather than the arcane IP address". Therefore, instead of typing "207.207.43.86," you can type www.kinnser.com to access Kinnser's website.

Finding an Available Domain Name
To find an available domain name, go to a domain registrar such as Network Solutions, Register.com or Whois.com, and search the WhoIs database for the domain name you want to own. If the name is available, you can register (buy) that particular domain through any of the services listed above, or another registrar. Choose a registrar with the best deal, enter your contact information and register for the domain name. If someone already owns your first choice domain, the registrar will usually offer similar domain names. Keep in mind that you will have to pay a fee to register and maintain a domain name for your website, but you should not worry - domains are inexpensive. They tend to cost anywhere from $5 to $30 per year, depending upon the service you use as a registrar and the number of domains you purchase.

Tips:

• Remember that the shorter the domain name, the easier the URL will be for visitors to recall.
• Register for the domain in your name. For example, if you hire someone to design your site, make sure the domain name is registered in your name, not the Web designer's name.
• Domains expire. Pay attention to your expiration dates and renewal notices so you retain ownership of your domain names. Recently, one of the industry's largest homecare associations made this costly mistake. The organization eventually regained ownership, but keep in mind that not everyone is this lucky.

Additional Considerations: Consider Multiple Domains and Extensions
The last part of the domain name contains a suffix, which indicates the type of organization hosting the site. For example, the extension may be ".edu" for schools, ".gov" for government and ".com" for commercial business sites. When you select a domain name for your home health business, consider registering for the three main extensions, such as the ".com", ".org" and ".net" versions of the domain name. This will protect your brand identity so your competition cannot use them against you. Additionally, you may consider registering for similar domain names such as your full agency name, a shorter, easy-to-remember version and/or a hyphenated version, if your business name includes two or more words.