What are domains and hosting, and what do they cost a year?

The domain is the address people type into a browser: ornekkafe.com, burdurotoservis.com. Think of it as your street address — the thing printed on signage, cards and invoices. It is not bought outright but rented yearly and renewed every year. Choose something short, spelled the way it sounds, carrying your business name, and avoid hyphens, digits and accented characters.

Hosting is the always-on computer where your site's files sit. When someone types your domain, that machine sends back the page. The domain is the address; hosting is the shop itself, and a site cannot be live without both. You do not need a machine in your office — the service is rented ready-made, and a brochure site does not need a powerful server.

For a small business site, domain and hosting together come to around 1,500 TL a year. The figure moves with the size of the site and its traffic, but a brochure site rarely goes beyond it. In my packages the first year is included in the price; from the second year you pay 1,500 TL for domain and hosting plus 3,500 TL for maintenance — 5,000 TL in total. If a provider cannot state this figure clearly, ask for it in writing.

If all your customers are in Turkey, either works — in practice .com is easier to remember and people type it by reflex. A `.com.tr` address requires a document such as a tax certificate, which slows setup down. Google treats both equally in local search; what decides ranking is your content and your Business Profile, not the extension.

If the domain is not renewed the site goes offline and the name eventually becomes available for anyone to take — losing years of accumulated ranking and every card printed with that address. Put the renewal date in your calendar and turn on auto-renewal. This is also why you should hold the registrar login yourself. For clients on maintenance I send a reminder before the date.

In the owner's own name — there is no flexibility here. If the domain sits in the builder's name, the address stays with them when you part ways and all the leverage moves to their side. Your own ID or tax details should be requested at registration and the panel password handed to you. Open the registrar panel together at handover and see your own name in the registrant field.