Tips on Choosing and Buying a Good Domain Name

The domain name you choose can be critical to the success of your business website.

Your website will need a unique domain name which will become the exclusive address of your business on the internet, e.g. www.mysite.com. Once you have a domain name, it can also be used for email, e.g. info@mysite.com, as well as your business stationary.

Choosing a domain name should be your first task in preparing to set-up a web site. However, do take your time since the domain name you choose can be critical to the success of your web site. Once you've chosen your domain name, grab it quickly before someone else does.

It's best to choose a domain name that matches the products or services that you're selling, or perhaps your brand name, or advertising name.

If you're starting a new business, it is possible that it may grow into additional, or different areas of interest. For this reason, it may be an idea not to make your domain name too specific to one area of your expertise, or location.

We can help you choose and purchase your domain name from one of the registrars that offers you security and best value for money.

Your unique domain name will always belong to you, providing you pay the renewal fees.

The Popular Dot Com

You will probably have noticed the various domain name extensions, such as .com, .net and .org. If you're selling a product or service world-wide, get a dot com if you can. This is the best known extension and most easily remembered.

If you type a domain name into your browser without the extension it will assume it is a dot com and try to find that site. A dot com domain name will also help toward creating confidence in your web site and what you have to sell.

Because of their popularity, most of the best dot com names have already been taken, so you will probably have to use a bit of ingenuity when choosing your domain name.

Allowed characters

Domain names can only contain letters, numbers, and hyphens (dashes). Spaces and symbols are not allowed.

Use a plural form if this seems more natural. If you're selling old books, I'd choose "oldbooks.com" instead of "oldbook.com".

Try to keep your domain name as short as possible and simple - it needs to be memorable, and avoid any domain name that by its nature is hard to spell or confusing.

The use of hyphens may provide you with more chance to register the domain name that you want. Domain names with hyphens have pros and cons:

Pros:

A long domain name is easier to read with hyphens.
Hyphenated domain names can contribute towards a higher ranking in search engine results, leading to more visitors to your website.

Cons:
Longer domain name, more letters and more difficult to type.
More difficult to spell a hyphenated domain name, or email address, for example, over the phone.

Search Engine Considerations

Search engines are likely to give your web site a better ranking in their search results if your domain name contains the main search term or keyword of what you have to sell, or your web site's main topic.

When it comes to choosing a domain name, keyword domain names are very important. Typical keywords could be the name of the product, service, speciality or perhaps your business, or brand name.

Search engines base their results on keywords entered into the search box. If what you have for sale is closer to the search keywords than competing web sites, then your product is likely to appear higher in the search results. Accordingly, you may want to consider:

The keywords that you would expect visitors to use to find your web site.
What discriminates what you have for sale from competing web sites ?

Regional Marketing Considerations

Consumers frequently add regional or country specific words to their search term when seeking local products and services. Search engines also serve region specific results.

If you're marketing your products and services only to users in a single country, then seriously consider using that country's top-level domain. This will help to identify your site as a local one. Alternatively, if you prefer to use a dot com name, consider adding the country to the domain name.

If you add a country, or region to your domain name, your web site is likely to receive more visitors from that country, or region, but fewer visitors from elsewhere.

Watch Out for Unintentional Words

Check that your proposed domain name does not contain words that join to form unintentional words such as ExpertsExchange.com => ExpertSexchange.com. If you have to use such domain names, consider the use of a hyphen to separate the words => experts-exchange.com, or capitalisation in marketing and stationary => ExpertsExchange.com

Using Your Own Name

If you are a consultant, writer, or other professional whose reputation in your field is critical to drawing customers, consider registering your first and last name as your domain name.

Check That It's Safe To Use a Proposed Domain Name

An available domain name does not necessarily give you the right to register and use it. Check that your proposed domain name does not infringe on an existing trademark, or brand name, or other name that rightfully belongs to another company or individual. Something like "MicrosoftDesigns.com" would not be recommended.

Securing Your Domain Name

Your domain name supplier is bound to contact you when a domain name comes up for renewal. Make sure you keep your contact information up-to-date.

The larger domain name registrars will send pre-expiration reminders or even automatically renew on your behalf. Sign up for this protection whenever available.

It's an idea to secure your domain name for a minimum of several years. This will give you peace of mind that it is secure and we also suspect that search engines account for the length of registration when ranking web site results. Google, for example, accounts for the maturity of a web sites in its rankings.

Set-up Google Alerts for every domain you register so you can be amongst the first to hear of any news mentioning your web address.

Once you've picked the perfect domain name, make sure to register as the administrative contact for your domain. That gives you legal ownership of the name which will be critical if you want to switch web hosts.

You can check out the availability of domain names and register new domains at several Websites, including GoDaddy.com.