Choosing a domain name for your site

The domain name for your site: Choose one that has what you do or sell in the title. Make sure it is easy to remember and to spell. Don't make it too long. For example lets say you make dresses. You could have dressmaker.com or if that wasn't available you could have dressmakeryourname.com. They say that hyphenated names do well on the internet. If you live in Ireland and you have a business name registered you might want to book a .ie domain as well. You have to fill out forms to do this one and it's more expensive. The reason people do it at all is that searchengines knows by your ip address where you live in the world and will bring up local websites first. So if you have dressmaker.com and dressmaker.ie the dressmaker.ie will come up first when local people search. The .ie isn't so important if your service or product is used from anywhere in the world. If you have a local service or business then I would recommend booking a .ie address.
Also there is more of a chance that the name you are looking for is available on a .ie domain even if it the .com is already taken. That's because only someone living and owning a business in Ireland can set up a .ie domain. Whatever way you look at it you will have to pay something for booking a domain name.
Hosting is different and if you want your site to be live on the net you will have to buy hosting space. http://www.loewenmedia.com provide cheap reliable hosting. You pay for that yearly. You will need to know if you need a SSL certificate. If you are selling something on line and taking credit card details you will need SSL and a payment gateway. Paypal doen't require an SSL certificate but customers have to leave your site and go to Paypal to complete their purchase. However for start up we recommend Paypal, at least until you are selling enough to justify the expense of setting up an SSL and a payment gatway. Realex supply a very good payment gateway. You will also need an ecommerce merchant account to operate through Realex.