About Domain Names

By Michelle Shaeffer

More than 50 million domain names have been registered and more are registered every day. Are you ready to join in and get your own domain? This article covers some of the important things to consider.

To get started choosing your domain name, grab a piece of paper. Write down your business name and your name as well as a list of the products or services you offer. These are your starting points. Keep this list in mind as you go through the points below.

1) Your domain should be easy to spell and easy to remember.

Do not choose a domain name which is difficult to spell or people trying to access your site may be frustrated and confused when they misspell it and end up at a different website or no website at all.

2) Consider including your keywords or phrases.

Having a domain name that includes your main product line makes it easier for customers to remember and will give you a boost in the search engines. After all, if you use the domain JohnsAlaskanRealEstate.com the chances are pretty good that you are offering Real Estate in Alaska and your site would be relevant to a search for Alaskan Real Estate. Of course, a domain name alone won’t rank you #1 for the word or phrase you’ve used, but it does help.

You could also consider a domain name like keyword-keyword.com such as Alaska-Real-Estate.com (but don’t go crazy with four or five hyphenated words, see point 1 above and point 3 below!). If you do use a hyphenated domain I recommend also purchasing the non-hyphenated version, in this example that would be AlaskaRealEstate.com, for use in offline advertising and 301 redirect it to your main website.

3) Keep it simple. Shorter is better.

mywebsiteisawesomeandmybusinessnameismybusiness.com is not something people are going to remember or want to type out.

4) Check out similar domain names.

.net or.biz are fine domain extensions if the.com is taken for the domain you want, but keep in mind that some of your potential customers may mistype the domain to end it in.com and if the.com is a site you don’t want them visiting (such as an adult site), you need to reconsider your choice.

5) Be careful with numbers.

You can use numbers in a domain name, but try to avoid 0 (zero) because it may be mistaken for an O (letter o). Also be cautious with L, l, and 1.¨

6) Read it in various ways.

Have others look at your idea and read it… because sometimes the words can be combined differently and not quite as intended. You may have seen examples of domains registered by companies who did not have considered alternative readings and ended up with inappropriate words in their domain names (it’s widely circulated on the internet as a humorous forward email).

7) Check domain history.

You really don’t want to purchase a domain that was previously used by spammers or an adult site. Go to waybackmachine.org to find past sites on a domain. With these seven tips in mind, take that piece of paper and start brainstorming ideas. Once you’ve got a few you like the next step is to see what’s available for registration.