Now What?

Step 1: Open the bundle and read the names out loud.

Out loud, actually. That's not a metaphor.

Reading a domain name on a screen and saying it on a phone are two different things. The name you'll use for the next decade is the one that doesn't make you cringe when you answer a customer call with it.

Take your time on this. You have ten options. There's no rush.

A few things to weigh:

• Does it pronounce cleanly? If you have to spell it out half the time, that's friction every day.
• Does it fit the trade? A roofer's name should sound like a roofer's name. Not "tech-y." Not too abstract.
• Is it on the dot-com? Availability moves fast and the only true check is the one you do at your registrar the day you buy. Search for the name you want before you fall in love with it.

If none of the ten work, reply to your welcome email and we'll work with you.

Step 2: Register your chosen name. In your name.

This is the most important step on this page. You register the domain. Not us. Not an agent. You.

Go to a registrar of your choice, search for your chosen name, and buy it. Most standard .com domains run somewhere in the $10–$20 range per year at renewal, but prices vary by registrar and by the specific name — check the price on screen before you commit. Use your own name and your own card.

A few things we strongly recommend:

• Use a registrar with a clear reputation and straightforward pricing. Don't search at obscure "domain finder" tools — some of them log your searches and bots register the good ones before you can.
• Turn on WHOIS privacy if the registrar offers it free. Keeps your home address off the public registration record.
• Set up auto-renew. Letting a domain expire is the single most expensive mistake a small business makes online.

When you're done, you own the domain outright. It's in your name, on your registrar account, on your terms.

Step 3: Get a host.

The domain is the address. The host is the building.

For a simple landing page (which is what your bundle includes), you don't need anything fancy. Three honest options:

If you're not sure, start with shared hosting. It's the lowest-friction path to "online today." Your registrar usually sells hosting too — that's often the simplest place to start since it's one login for everything.

Step 4: Save your files. Then upload them.

Your welcome email has two pieces of your bundle:

• An index.html file and a small set of landing page template files — these together are your page. Save them all to one folder on your computer.
• A private link to your four HD images — click the link in the email, and you'll see four download buttons. Save each image into the same folder you just made for the page files. (All four together are under 30 MB at worst, so the downloads are fast even on a slow connection.) The images are AI-generated and licensed to you for your business use — not exclusive. See our Terms for the details.

Now you have one folder with everything in it: the page, the images, the styling. That same folder, with its same structure, needs to live on your web host.

Most shared hosts give you a tool called a "file manager" inside your account control panel. The job: upload everything from your folder into your host's public_html (or equivalent) directory.

Every host has a "how to upload a website" article in their help center. They've all written it. Use theirs — they know their tool better than we can describe it.

If you get stuck, reply to your welcome email. We'll point you at the right walkthrough for your specific host.

Step 5: Point your domain at your host.

This is where DNS comes in. One sentence: DNS is the phone book that tells the internet which host to talk to when someone types your domain.

Your host gave you two "nameserver" addresses when you signed up — usually something like ns1.yourhost.com and ns2.yourhost.com. Your job is to put those two addresses into your registrar's domain settings.

Steps:

1. Log into your registrar.
2. Find your domain. Click "Manage" or "DNS settings."
3. Replace the existing nameservers with the two from your host.
4. Save.

Then walk away. The change takes anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours to spread across the internet. ("Propagation" — sounds dramatic, isn't.) Check by typing your domain into a fresh browser tab every twenty minutes.

When the page comes up — that's it. You're live.

Step 6: Tell five people.

The technical part is done. The business part starts now.

Send your URL to five people who would be honest with you. Ask them: "Does this make sense? Would you call this person if you needed [your trade]?"

Their answers will tell you what to fix in version two. And version two is what matters — version one's job is just to exist.

A few cheap, useful things to do in the first week your page is live:

• Set up a free Bing Webmaster Tools account. Bing sends real traffic, especially for trade searches. Most small business owners skip it because Google gets all the attention. Bing's crawler will find a brand-new site in hours if you submit the URL.
• Check your trademarks at tmsearch.uspto.gov before you print business cards. Free. Thirty seconds. Better to know now than after.
• Add a Google Business Profile if you serve a local area. Free, takes ten minutes, and it's how most people will find you on Maps.

Step 7: When you're up, help the next person.

This is the one ask we'll make on this page.

If your business gets going, and someone in your trade asks how you got started — tell them. Point them at this page if it helps. Forward the AIDomainForge link if you found it useful. Or don't, and just share what you learned in your own words.

We built AIDomainForge with the idea that the more independent operators making their own ground online, the better the whole map gets. We're not protective of the territory. We'd rather see ten more people set up than corner the small market we're in.

Owning your name, keeping your costs honest, and not selling anybody complexity they don't need — those are the rules of the road. Pass them on.