About to purchase domains, anything I need to know?

[Method]

Bit of a broad question I know. I'm about to purchase 2 domains, 1 x .co.uk and 1 x .com. It's to expand my photography base. I will be putting a Wordpress based blog onto it. Would be around £30 for the two domains over 2 years each.

Where do I start? I've read a few g00gle results mentioning this WHOIS database etc.

For the .com, once I select my term and go to pay it askes about DNS Management, Email Forwarding & ID Protection for what looks like £6.

Can anyone shed any light on this stuff?

Much appreciated.

 

[Method]

You should never buy a domain with your hosting provider.

I personally register all domains on namecheap.com then host it on hostgator.com. If you wanted hosting in the UK, then I have no idea. They all seem sucky compared to elsewhere

Out of interest, why should you not being using their packages?

I'll be hosting with a UK based company, but I'm interested on the reasoning behind not picking the packages.