How To Choose A Good Domain Name?

Every Thursday, there is a topic covered in internet marketing basics. This series is aimed to address the basic building blocks of internet business, the very foundations on which your business would prosper.The articles in this series are for people who have just started or willing to start. Let us sharpen the basic concepts together.

You are welcome and in fact encouraged to ask the questions and make comments. Your queries would be replied with full consideration.

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
– Shakespeare

Before going into this discussion I want you to look at the names Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Facebook. You cannot guess about their business from their names.

It is my firm belief  and observation over the years that you can succeed with any domain name you have. All you need to do is promote. But optimally put some domains are easier to remember than others and thus offer you distinct advantage.

A domain name should represent your business. It should reflect your brand and should be short, relevant, impactful and easy to remember.

Here is what I take into account when registering a domain name.

Your Domain Name Should Reflect About Your Business

At this juncture, with so many domains already being taken, it is very difficult to find a domain name that is reflection of your business. All the simple one two and three worded domains are taken and so are the good phrases.

But do not loose heart. By just adding a letter or number you can twist a new set of possible names.

If you deal in pink widgets, your domain name should signify that you are in pink widget business. An ideal domain name would be pinkwidget.com but then there are number of other possible outcomes like widgetspink, getpinkwidgets, thepinkwidgets, epinkwidgets and so on.

There is no restriction on selling pink widgets and keeping a website name something like offrua.com but then it does not tell anything about your business. That is not a serious handicap and might be good brand name in the long run but then you need to be prepared for that long run.

If you cannot get  good domain name  like this then adding numbers can help pinkwidgets111 or something like that.

If you insist on getting a particular name which is not available, the next choice is to buy it from who own it. This can be found by little Who.is search. Many domain registrars offer this link when you search for the domain and that is already taken.

Obviously you would be charged a higher fee if it the domain is for sale.

But in my view, if you’re just starting out, it is better to get a new domain name and establish it.

Brand or Generic?

If your niche is very specific then go for a niche specific brand name. For example if you are selling blue as well pink widgets, it is better to have widgets.com rather than pinkwidgets.com, which is better if you have only pink widgets.

Long Versus Short Names

Forget about length. Have something that is easy to remember. Domain names can be of any length up to 67 characters. Not many people type names in the address bar now a days. Most of them cut and paste. Do not settle for a short obscure name instead of long memorable names. For example HowYouShouldRunYourBusiness.com is better name than HYSRYB.com

rather than the length it is the meaningfulness which is more important.

Hyphen

I am strongly against use of hyphens. They are not easy to remember and they are very easy to forget. So you loose in verbal communication where the teller might omit hyphens. They say that search engines can distinguish your keywords better and thus return your site more prominently in search results for those keywords occurring in your domain name. But you need to keep a domain name primarily fro people and not the engines.

You might get pink-widgets.com instead of pinkwidgets and this may thrill you but then you should remember that you would be actually sending some of your own traffic to pinkwidgets when someone forgets hyphen.

Oops.

TLDs – COM? ORG? NET? or Country Specific

What Should be your top level domain?

If your target audience is local or up to national level, you would fare better by taking a country specific name. That way people know that you are local.

.com domains are more commonly found in business. First reflex of everyone who hears pinkwidgets is to go to pinkwidgets.com. Thus you have a natural advantage over other TLDs when you have a .com domain name.

I personally prefer.com domains over other. But with plethora of TLDs available, you can choose any one TLD. All you need to do is to promote the domain in full, along with TLD.

For example, if you settle for pinkwidgets.net then promote your website as pinkwidgets.net and not  as Pink Widgets.

Finally

There is no universal set of guidelines for choosing a domain name. This article was to give you an idea to choose a domain name in better way.

However, if you work enough on any domain name and promote it well, any domain name can bring you success.

After all

What’s in a name?

Any questions or suggestions! Just comment

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