Many business owners put off their website because the words around it sound technical. They are simpler than they sound.
A domain is your address
A domain name, like shreejisarees.in, is the address people type to reach your website. You rent it yearly from a registrar such as GoDaddy, Hostinger or BigRock. Choose one that is short, easy to spell over the phone, and ideally ends in .in or .com.
A sub-domain is an address inside someone else's domain
When you start on Merci Sites, your website lives at yourname.sites.merciglobal.com. That is a sub-domain: it works immediately, costs nothing extra, and is perfectly fine to share while you decide on your own domain.
DNS tells the internet where your domain points
DNS records are like a directory entry for your domain. To connect a domain to Merci Sites you add an A record, which says "this domain lives at server 137.23.47.134". You add one for the bare domain and one for the www version so both work. Your registrar has a DNS page where you can add these in a couple of minutes.
DNS changes can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours to spread. Your Merci Sites dashboard checks every few minutes and shows when the records are correct.
SSL is the padlock
SSL encrypts the connection between your visitor and your website. Browsers mark sites without it as "Not secure", and search engines prefer secure sites. Once your domain points to us, Merci Sites issues a free SSL certificate and renews it automatically before it expires.
Email is separate
Connecting your domain to your website does not change where your email goes, as long as you only edit the A records described above. If you use email on your domain, leave the MX records alone.
A sensible order of steps
- Publish on your free sub-domain and start sharing it.
- Buy your domain when you are sure of the name.
- Add the two A records at your registrar.
- Enter the domain in your Merci Sites dashboard and wait for the green tick.
That is all there is to it.