April 25 (Reuters) - Internet services firm VeriSign ( VRSN )

reported a 5.5% rise in its first-quarter revenue on

Thursday, helped by steady demand for domain name registrations

as businesses beef up their online presence.

More and more enterprises are nowadays choosing to build

their presence on the internet with easy-to-remember domain

names to capture a wider range of customers online.

VeriSign ( VRSN ) is the sole registry for .com and .net domains and

it operates two of the 13 global internet root servers.

The company competes with Israeli-based Wix.com ( WIX ) and

GoDaddy ( GDDY ), which provide easy-to-use tools to build

website and scale businesses.

VeriSign ( VRSN ) posted revenue of $384 million for the quarter

ended March 31, compared with $364 million a year ago.

It reported quarterly profit of $1.92 per share, higher than

the $1.70 per share a year ago.