Choose a Domain Name
By Fatima | Published July 12, 2008
While setting up your own site to make money or otherwise, selection of domain name is important part because your domain name is the first thing that attracts visitor towards your site. If your domain name is good, discussed in the article what a GOOD domain name is about, you will have more chances to get more visitors. Lets have a look how is it possible.
First of all, keep it in your mind that you have to choose a domain name which is professional, memorable and easy to share via word of mouth. Bellow are some bright rules you can consider to successfully select a good domain name. However, it is possible that you remain unable to fulfill one or some of the rules, described bellow, in the process of choosing a domain name. We can understand because individual needs and conditions can vary.
Rule 1: Choose a domain name that describes the name of your site as well. This practice is good because if your business name and domain name is same, your visitors will come directly to your site. If you are running a business of selling computers and your business or website is called ‘High Tech Computers’, then your domain name can be HighTechComputers.com. Because, if someone wants to visit you online, he will type HighTechComputers.com and, if this is not your domain name, there are chances that he will go directly to your competitor’s website. This means a loss in the count of your potential customers.
Rule 2: Avoid having numbers in your domain name because they can cause confusion. Your condition may vary but numbers make the domain name difficult to share via word of mouth. It happens because when you tell the name to others, the next question will definitely be if the number in the name is alphabetic or numeric.
Rule 3: If possible, choose a domain name with a .com. This is important because such domain names appear to be the most professional. Also, .com extension is what comes in everybody’s mind as default extension. But exceptions are there are many other extensions you can choose from. You may choose a .edu extension for education based websites, a .org for a non-profit organization, a .net for network based websites, etc. You can also select a country specific domain extension if you intend to provide country specific information on your website like .uk, .pk, .fr, ny, .de, etc. However, I will personally prefer a .com for me.
Rule 4: The hyphenated domain names are hard to tell with the word of mouth. Such names also do not look as professional as non-hyphenated names. In earlier years, such domain names were good from SEO (Search Engine Optimization) point of view but the case does not sustain now.
Rule 5: Usually domain names have up to 64 characters. But a good domain name should not contain more than 25 characters, excluding the extension, is a bit tricky for a many reasons. One main reason is if you ever want to advertise through PPC search engines.
Rule 6: Remember to have correct spellings in your domain name. FastLinksEver.com is better than FastLinxEver.com. This is important because if you tell someone about your domain name and he cannot get the right spellings, there will be high chances to hit your competitor’s site. Such domain names can also a key cause to reduce your search engine ranking. People can remember your domain name for long time if it is not misspelled.
Conclusion: Choose a domain name with a GOOD extension. If possible, register a .com domain name. Short domain names are good, ideally 7 characters. The reason is because such names are easy to remember and have less chance of being mis-typed. Also, short domain names are easy to convey orally and looks professional. You should select a domain name that describes your business very well. It is good because when you tell your domain name to others, he or she should get some sense of what your site is all about. It is also good to add your main keywords, which describe your business, in your domain name. Last but not the least, do not prefer to use dashes in your domain name.