Questions about domain names Ty

Okay so I have realized I know nothing about websites ;p. I know what they look like but I have no clue about the whole dynamics behind websites. I have been trying to read and learn about all of it.
I have came upon the steps.
If I have this right and someone could help and give me feedback would be greatly appreciated.

So you get the domain first, and then you get hosting and then your website and then your website is live. I get that. Here is my question below:

So I go to get a domain name and I realized a few things.

So domain names are cheap and I am reading on go daddy that you can get many endings .com, .net, .co, .us so I left go daddy and I was reading articles on Google and seems some people have different ideas about this.
Some articles state the best way is to buy up a bunch of extensions at once stopping others from buying domains similar to yours. At this rate if a person does this domains names wouldn't be cheap lol as ten extensions could run up to 130.00 a year. Some people say just stick with the dot com and that is it. What is your point of view on this?

Next,
Then after you decide how many domains you are going to buy then there is this whole security thing of either showing your contact info or not to show contact info. So I am guessing it is based on a who is database and I have talked with a few people that said if you own the domain and someone looks you up why would you want to hide it. If you own a business you should want others to know how to contact you. So what is your point of view on this.

Last question
So the last part is How many emails do you want. So one person said don't buy any extra as the hosting will have so many that comes with hosting. So is this the best way? Thank you in advance for answering these questions.

 

What i am about to say will depend on how much IT skills you have. Its not for everyone.

When buying hosting and domain names i never buy them from the same place. Buying domain names and hosting from the same place is almost like buying designer shoes from your local petrol station.... For people who are just getting their first site going and are a little lost, buying both hosting and a domain name from a company such as hostgator, and they will manage everything for you.

Where do i buy domain names from? I buy all my names from namecheap.com close to 20 names now and its the easiest control panel that i have ever used. I prefer to get only .com names if i can, but if your a company buy a .com as well as your local country code (for example i would buy both .com and .com.au for australian business)

Now for privacy, well i for one like to hide my details. If people have a legal reason to find my address there is legal avenues, and if people need to contact me via email, they STILL can. Hiding my details just prevents people in say america calling their time 9am-5pm and me getting called at 3am in the morning. Now if i was running a professional business with 24/7 phones and staff then i wouldnt hide my details, but for little blogs, why would they need to call me?

As far as emails? Exactly how many emails do you need? Most shared hosting will come with no hard limit on emails, for most business who simply have a site as a point of contact with a few email address then shared is fine. But if your talking about a professional business website, then thats a different catagory.

When you look at shared hosting, it might say "unlimited" for HDD or "unlimited" for bandwidth and alot of people, (especially business that are just getting their first website) dont quite realise that there is alot of limitations. Think about how many phone lines a business has. Why do you have more then one if each line can make "unlimited" amounts of calls? Its common for business people to understand that they cant share 1 phone line with 2000 other sales reps as it just doesnt work. Same with shared hosting. If its a new site then shared hostings fine (same with a new start up is fine with only 1 phone line) but if your running a large site, and or getting large amounts of traffic then you need to look into a fully managed VPS. A quality fully managed VPS may cost $50 per month.

In regards to website design, you can often get away with using wordpress, and often you can hire people to create custom wordpress themes and to help with graphics to create a pleasant budget solution. Business websites should be of a higher quality then compared with other sites. Business people can see the importance of wearing suits, dressing nicely, having a clean office... but when they think of websites they often fail to see the need to have something acceptable.
Take a look at this site and tell me what your first impression is: engexport DOT com.au
Now take a look at their competitors website and you tell me which company you would call tomorrow: dotmar DOT com.au

You only get one chance to make a first impression and if you are a small business thinking to get a website, put aside at least $1000 a year for hosting and site design, and if its done well you should get that back within a year.

 

Start with one domain name and web hosting. Web hosting does come with email service so there is no need to pay extra for email.

 

Thank you both! For the very pleasant and easy understanding of this!

 

Yes having a nice website should be everything, I do in fact believe first impression is everything eye candy is everything! Thank you again!

 

If you can get a quality domain name cheap, then I congratulate you. However, the odds are 99 to 1 that the cheap domain you'll register will be very poor quality -- simply because your first 10-20 choices will be registered already, and you'll settle for something inferior.

As matt_62 said above, "You only get one chance to make a first impression". While he said that regarding the web design, it is even MORE true of the domain name. That domain will be how people perceive you. It will determine whether they choose to click on your links and ads. And it may interfere with their ability to remember you, find you, or tell their acquaintances about you. While you can revise your website again and again, changing its look and feel; for better or worse, the domain you choose too quickly today will probably be the foundation of your online business for years. You'll be stuck.

People put so much effort growing their website's business that it's often disappointing to see a site cramped and limited by a bad name. Everybody assumes they can pick a good name. Everybody. But look around and you'll begin to notice that practically everybody who goes out today to register a new domain picks a dud. My advice in this regard is to set a budget for picking a good domain name. How large that budget should be depends on how big a business you want to grow INTO. Your best chance, honestly, is to hire someone who focuses professionally on domains to select a menu of options for you. But whether you choose to do that or not, think about your domain name very seriously.

...

Now, as far as Whois privacy goes, I wouldn't bother unless you have something to hide. I personally own upwards of 10,000 domain names without privacy, and I am not bombarded with emails. Originally I used privacy protection, but then I decided I wanted buyers to be able to contact me more easily.

So you can save money by not paying for unnecessary privacy protection. Even with privacy protection, the domain owner can usually be emailed. The only difference is that the person doing the emailing must manually enter a Captcha code, and your actual email address is not shown.

And should a business register all extensions? Not just .com, but .org, and .net too? Or even .us, .mobi, .info, and so forth? I would say that depends on how likely it is that somebody else would want to register the same SLD with a different TLD (i.e. the same name with a different extension). And it also depends on how big your business could get. Cybersquatters will register typos of Amazon.com in order to make money off the errant traffic. But most online businesses don't get the same level of traffic as Amazon; and so there is no incentive for cybersquatters to ride piggy back.

Let me give an example: I own DragonTamer.com. But I don't intend to ever register DragonTamer.net or .org -- or any other extension. If somebody wants to swallow those extensions, let them. They'll waste money. There isn't that much competition for "Dragon Tamer", and it's unlikely that my site would be confused with some other site. It's simply too distinctive. But if I owned House.com, I would also prefer to own Houses.com, House.org, Houses.org, House.net, Houses.net, House.info, Houses.info, etc., etc., etc. Because this is a very competitive area AND a very generic brand, making it very likely--even inevitable--that other websites with similar domain names offering similar services would pop up.

Hope that makes sense. If you want a specific recommendation on your domain, just send a PM.