10 Tips for Choosing Your Domain Name
Choosing a domain name for your new website can be tricky, do you take this domain, that domain or look for more.
There are certain factors that should help you choose and here are 10 tips that can help you choose the best domain for you.
1. Extension - The domain extension is the bit at the end of the domain (.com, .net etc.) and is a major factor in choosing a domain. .com is the most popular extension, when most people here of a website (eg. izDirectory) but they don’t know the address they will go to www.izdirectory.com
If you are actually www.izdirectory.net then you have lost a visit. You should make sure you try and get .com’s first then followed by .net’s. You may also want to consider a country code domain. If you have the money you may also want to buy your domain with more than one extension and redirect them all to the same domain.
2. Keywords - Keywords can be an important part of choosing a domain. If you had a site about televisions and you domain was www.myfavouritecat.com then you would confuse visitors or they would not visit. If you had www.televisions.com then they would stand a lot more chance of visiting.
Having keywords can also do good for your SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) and make you near the top for the keywords in your domains.
3. Brand-able - When you are choosing a domain you should either choose keyword or brand-able and stick to your descision, both have their ups and downs.
The benefits of keyword domains are in the point above. A brand-able domain can be good for your website if you manage to define your brand and make it popular. Some good examples of brands are Google and Yahoo (while good examples of keywords are Download.com).
Once you have chosen your brand and made it popular then it will be great for you, if you choose a good brand name (eg. xooplet) and make it popular then people will love to say that instead of your keyword domain. The only problem is that if your brand is not known, then visitors will not know what the site is about so might not visit.
4. Length - Domain length is one other thing to keep in mind while choosing your domain name. People are not going to like saying or typing www.mywebsitewitheverythingaboutme.com so www.mywebsite.com will be a better option.
Choosing a short domain for the sake of it is also a bad thing. You should aim for a mid-length domain, around 10 characters is good. Do not just make something like ixqk.com because it is short, it has hard to remember.
5. Pronouncable - Having a pronouncable domain will give you good benefit for word of mouth advertising and will look better.
www.wachoo.com would be a pronouncable domain, it is easy to pronounce but having chquel.com is hard to pronounce and spell so people will find it hard to tell the address to their friends.
6. Easy to Remember - Having an easy to remember domain can be a great benefit. If people see an advert for a website, then for get the domain it is wasted money for the advertiser. If the domain is easy to remember then more people will visit. It is simple.
7. Numbers & Characters - Having numbers and characters in a domain is not good. Domains are allowed to have any number in them and they can also have a “-”. Having numbers can be ok but they will make your domain look ugly, hard to remember and non-pronouncable.
Having a “-” can be good for splittling words up but makes the domain longer and less pronouncable, it should only be used if the one without the “-” is taken (eg. mycar.com is taken but my-car.com is not).
8. Previous Owners - If you are buying a domain from someone else or buying one that someone used to own but let expire then you may have some good and bad things waiting around the corner.
The previous owner probably will have advertised the website so it might have listings in directories and search engines, links to it, visitors coming to it and a PR.
You can use all these things to an advantage, I recommend you check out a domain before buying it using a tool like www.dnscoop.com to see what the domain is like.
The domain could also have been used for bad things like spamming, gambling, warez and illegal downloads which could have gotten it a bad reputation, blocked by mail providers or banned by some ISPs or search engines (use a “Google Banned” checker before buying a domain).
9. Number of Words - The number of words is closely related to the length. People will prefer to type car.com than buyacar.com
Try and make sure you get the least words possible, 2 is a good number. Having one word can rule out the keyword tip from above, but habing more than 3 will make it very long so look at all of your options first.
10. Dictionary Words - Having dictionary words in your domain is better than having random letters. Some people might want to look for a new printer so they would type in www.printers.com but if you chose www.sdiu.com for your website instead of www.printers.com then you have lost a visit and a possible sale.
All these tips can help you choose a domain but in the end it is up to you, so choose wisely.
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