Your domain name is important in the SEO process. If possible, it should reflect the subject matter on your website. Read this and choose carefully.
Once you have a domain name checker before you, it’s time to begin the trial and error process of finding a suitable and available name for your website. Get a hot cup of coffee and settle down to the task. This might take some time.
Plainly stated, your domain name should describe your website or business. The reason is easy to understand. People search the web for information by using certain terms or keywords. If you are just starting to build a website, it will be best to name the business or website after the domain name you’ve secured. For example, if you are offering to prepare resumes at low cost, and you secure the domain name lowcostresumes.com, that should be your website name too. After all, you can’t expect that people will memorize a totally unrelated URL. There is, however, another issue: Is low cost resumes the best keyword phrase you can select? Is that the term the majority of people will search under? Probably not! And there are methods and tools available to help you select the search term (keyword) with the greatest potential for high traffic.
Many people seem to believe that a generic domain name is best, like refrigerators.com. However, you will quickly discover that such names are almost always taken and if you want to buy one, be prepared to pay an arm and a leg. We personally believe that a domain name that is also your brand name is the best bet because most people search that way. For example, would you search under refrigerators or something more related to what you are looking for like General Electric refrigerators or portable refrigerators?
Whether a domain name should be long or short is also debated. In reality, your domain name can be up to 67 characters long. This gives you a chance to be specific and use a name that more closely matches your target market. Low cost resumes uses 14 characters compared to 7 for resumes, but it specifies people who don’t want to pay a lot of money to have their new resume written, and if this is your targeted group, it makes good sense. In this example, the longer one is more targeted. It is also becoming almost impossible to get a short generic domain name these days.
Hyphenated domain names have good points and bad points. The bad points are that it’s awfully easy to forget to type in the hyphens which might end up taking visitors to your competition. They are also a pain to type when you’re in a hurry. The advantage might be that the non-hyphenated name is not available. With hyphenation, you can at least end up with the name you really want. For example if lowcostresumes.com was taken, this webmaster could have gotten low-cost-resumes.com.
You will also find that many domain registrars offer you suggestions that are built around the name that’s taken. Many of these have ‘The’ or ‘My’ or ‘Your’ in the name. For example, lowcostresumes, if taken, could have been offered as ‘mylow costresumes’ or ‘yourlowcostresumes’. Or, ‘refrigerator.com’ could have been ‘my refrigerator.com’ or ‘refrigerators.com’ with the plural form added. Beware of one danger when selecting a plural form of a domain name: if visitors omit the plural, they may be going straight to your competitor’s website.
What about names that don’t have a .com because they are all taken. You can probably get .biz, .org, .net or some other suffix. If you feel strongly that the primary name is a critical identifier, one of these might be an acceptable option to the more familiar .com suffix. If you end up with a non-.com name, don’t forget to use the full URL in any promotions you do. Use the complete name!
One thing you don’t want to do is start out with one domain name and then change it later on. Any momentum you will have earned will be lost and you’ll be starting out from scratch.
So take the time to thoroughly search available domain names and keep all the options at your disposal firmly in mind. If possible, search on a site that is big and well established. A site that offers many suggestions when the name you wanted is taken, even if you plan to host your site elsewhere. GoDaddy.com is just such a site!
Remember that most of this applies to people who have not yet begun their new website. But your domain name can have a very-positive influence on search engine optimization, so consider this carefully before you begin.
