How to Choose A Domain Name

Tips For Choosing The Best Domain Names -

The first and foremost thing which will have a lasting impact over the success or failure of your site is the domain name. Registering and getting the perfect domain name is as important as the design of your webstie. Because the domain name is your brand and identity on the internet and people tend to remember names more than anything else. So do not rush through this step. Choosing a domain name is a step which is well worth research and spending time. If you give proper attention to this step then you will have a domain name which is short and sweet, easy to remember and type, promoting your brand and also keyword rich which will help to rank higher in search engines.

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What is a Domain Name -

The domain name is the unique URL or the address of your website that people will type in their browsers' address bar to get to your site. Fo eg the famous Amazon site has a domain www.amazon.com or www.amazon.in or you will have your's like www.yoursite.com. The domain name is the unique identifier of your site on the internet.

Tips For Choosing The Perfect Domain Name -

1. Make It Is Easy To Remember And Type - Your domain should be easy to remember type. A complicated or hard spelled domain will result in being misspelled by the users and ultimately they will end somewhere else than your site. Also an easy, short and catchy domain is better for mouth publicity and also easy to promote on offline media like your visiting cards. So as long as possible keep your domain name uncomplicated, short and easy.

2. Domain Name Should Be Keyword Rich - One of the biggest arena affecting the success of your site lies in it's domain being keyword rich. Keyword Rich means your domain should contain the keywords that you are targeting for your site. The most part of the visitors that will reach your site will come from the search engines like Google or Yahoo.com. And these are the free visitors also. And keyword rich domains have a very high chance for ranking high on search engines like google. Though it is not the only criteria to rank high it still has great impact on ranking of your site. Now a days search engines give more importance to other factors like social media bookmarking etc. but still to the present date an exact match domain is a criteria to rank higher on all search engines.

For eg. you are a roofing contractor who does his business in Houston. Then if you have a site with a domain name like www.houstonroofingcontractors.com, then it has all the chances to rank in the top 3 for a similar query. So keyword research is an important step that should precede domain name registration. Research all the keywords regarding your business and list out keywords that you want to target for your site and try to include them in your domain name. Also take into account that keywords that are in the beginning of a domain are given more importance by the search engines. For eg. a web hosting company can have a domain like www.webhostinglights.com or www.webhostingflash.com.

3. .com or .net or .org or.info ? Another hot topic of discussion amongst webmasters is, should you choose .com or .net or .org or .info as your domain extensions. First of all let's take a look at what some of these extensions mean -

1. .com - means commercial and is an open domain, means anybody from any country can register a .com
2. .net - means networking but can be used for anything and is an open domain meaning anybody from any country can register a .net domain.
3. .org - means organizations especially non-profit organizations but can be used for anything and is an open domain.
4. .info - means informational and is used for informational sites and is an open domain.
5. .biz - means business and is open for anybody from any country.
6. .us - is for individuals and companies, but only from United States.
7. .co.uk - is for companies only from United Kingdom.
8. .me - is for individuals and from any country.
9. .mobi - is open to anybody and for mobile devices.
10. .co.in - denotes an indian commercial entity

Now what extension should you choose? You can choose any TLD (Top Level Domain) and it will not make any difference from the search engine point of view, especially when all your desired .coms are already gone (most of the time they are!). So instead of choosing a non desired domain just for the sake of having a .com, you can choose your favorite domain name with the .info or ,net or .biz extensions. All the search engines will treat any TLD (Top Level Domain) like .com or .net or .org or .biz or .info equally apart from the country specific domains. What matters is the content of your site. But for country specific domains like .us or .co.uk or .de, they will rank higher for the search traffic from that corresponding country and may not rank the same for other coutries. But generally don't choose a domain name for which .com or .net or .info are already gone. Because people tend to remember the name of the site and not the domain extension. So if you pick up a .biz domain for which .com is already gone then visitors to your site may type in the .com version while visiting your site for the subsequent times and will end up on your competitors site. Now a days the trend is registering all the TLDs like .com, .info, .org, .net and point them all to your main domain. This might have a positive impact on search engine ranking of your site, but this way you will eliminate the competition from domain names for sure and will create your brand name.

Some argue that .com is the best and ranks higher when in competition with a .net or .info etc. in our opinion, it will not make a difference to search engines and all will be treated the same by them. The difference lies in the minds of people because .com was the first open domain made available for internet and so is popular with people. It may happen that a .com may receive more clicks on a search page than a .info but it is because it is still very popular in people's mind. But nowadays other extensions are also becoming popular and maybe in the future all will be treated the same by internet users. So.. conclusion you can choose any extension which suits best for your business.

4. Avoid Hyphens and Numbers - People don't remember numbers and dashes, so as long as possible don't include numbers in the domain . Including hyphens (dashes) in the domain name may be considered spammy by the search engines. So what to do when your desired domain is already gone? You can still include one or 2 hypehns (dashes) in your domain but avoid more than that. Google will be able to find the keywords from your domain name even if you don't include dashes in your domain or website's name. So no need to include dashes from the search engine point of view. But no harm in having a hyphen provided that you limit it to 1 or 2.

5. Avoid Trademarks - Avoid including trademarked words in the domain as it can get you into legal mess. For example, CocaCola is a trademarked word so do not choose a domain like mycocacola.com.

6. Use the Dictionary - If you find that all your favorite domain names are already gone then use the dictionary to find an alternative word for that name. You can use microsoft word thesauras for this purpose. Or sites like Godaddy offer very good alternative choices if your desired domain is gone.

7. Consider buying other TLD's - Consider buying other TLD's also. For example if you buy www.mysecrettips.com, then consider buying www.mysecrettips.info and .org and .biz also and direct them to your main domain. This will be useful if with any luck your site and brand becomes a success, as it will eliminate the competition and will not let anybody to use it.

8. Be creative with your branding - Your site may become a new internet sensation. So be creative with your branding right from the beginning.