Defining you: Don't be Generic; Get yourself a professional domain name.

• Author: Lenning, Jeff
• Position: Domain names

Do you have a generic e-mail address? For example, jeff@hotmail.com. jeff@yahoo.com or jeff@aol.com. If so, you may have had the desire to upgrade your e-mail to a more professional address--something like jeff@clickconsulting.com or jeff@yourfirmname.com.

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Besides being more professional to your clients, there are other advantages to getting a domain name for e-mail: you can retain the same e-mail address when you change service providers; everyone at your firm can have consistent e-mail accounts; and you can add server-level spam and virus protection.

Register a Domain

The first step is to register a domain name. More precisely, you are obtaining the right to use the domain name for a specific period of time. You do not own the domain. Typically, domain names are registered in one-year increments, for an average of $35 per year.

Entities that register' the domain on your behalf are called registrars, of which there are many. A quick search on Google will provide a list to choose from.

Once you find a registrar you trust, you register your domain name with it, and it takes care of the technical details. Specifically, the registrar inserts your domain name into the root domain name system (DNS) servers so that the internet knows your name exists and knows how to get information about it. Domain names for CPA firms generally take the form of firmnamecpa.com.

While your clients will be impressed when you show up with CPA@yourfirm.com as your e-mail address, the internet itself won't be. In fact, "yourfirm.com" means nothing to the internet.

Computers connected to each other through the internet find each other through what's called an IP address (such as 198. 162.99.01). The DNS was created to translate those long complicated strings of numbers into words that humans can more easily remember. A DNS server is little more than a list of domain names and the their associated IP addresses--but it is a mighty big list.

Get Hosting

Now that you have the right to use the domain name, it's time to attach internet services to it, the most popular being e-mail. This is typically done through a third-party e-mail hosting provider. Sometimes, registrars will offer e-mail and web hosting, but a dedicated hosting company generally provides e-mail service.

Things to look for in a hosting company include support (do people answer the phone?), high-quality hardware and harddrive redundancy.

Redundancy is important. Just ask your service...