Effective Tip: How To Choose The Right Domain Name

Starting out a new blog or website may take a little while to go, but part of that long procedure is the excitement of naming out that particular domain of yours.

Picking the right domain may or may not pass through a lot of rules, but the reality that we all must face is that, some domains just don’t work well, and better, some were really successful.

If you are thinking about it, having a healthy domain name does not only meet the need for a better audience, but it also works as another factor for optimizing that web page of yours.

With a good choice of a domain name, your blog can get better results in the search engines’ process of indexing, and if you have a professional by your side, the trick may be even easier.

Check out these few tips below to help yourself decide what your best domain name would be:

1. Stick with the brand

If you have already established a brand or corporate identity, you might want to stick to it. Otherwise, you might start out diagraming what brand should you really call yourself or your line of products or services.

If you are selling out cigars and tobaccos, you may want to prohibit yourself from using domain names like ‘tobaccosofjohn’ or any of the like, unless you really have that as your brand name. A healthy sample domain for this niche would be something like ‘johnandsmokes’ or ‘sticksandashtrays.’

2. Use Keywords

How about you list then at least five of the most appropriate keywords that would be so much associated with your product, service, or line of work? Just in case you’re a web developer as an example, you might have some keywords like ‘web development,’ ‘programmer,’ ‘html,’ ‘web designer,’ and ‘mobile developer.’

You might want to start experimenting around these keywords by either stringing them word after word, or by pinning one or two into your name.

Here are some ideas (we might have different taste, but hey at least you get the point)

• torontowebdesign.com (adding your hometown is also great)
• tdotwebdesign.com
• azwebdesign.com (adding your initials with your keyword would be awesome)
• webnerd.com

Other viable tools also include the use of a visual thesaurus and the free keywords tool of Google. The visual thesaurus helps you by providing relevant or popular searches related to a word you give as the base word, and the keywords tool of Google lists the top popular and most relevant searches related to a keyword or set of keywords you provide.

Basing your domain on some keywords is not necessarily a rule, but on SEO practices, this can be really helpful. By integrating a keyword into your domain name means that you add another searchable element to your blog.

Moreover, people will also be able to give out more proper guesses of what you do or offer whenever they step on your domain name.

3. Go with .com

If you are looking for a good domain name extension, the most popular and the most recommendable would be .com. Regardless whether you are really on the commercial side or not, using .com as your extension means that you are using a very safe extension that virtually everyone would try at first.

Being the most common, it’s what people would assume a domain name would be with, right before they try other extensions such as .org, .net, and so on.

Yes, you may use other domain extensions as you please, but remember that people may be confused as the time goes or they might forget that you are not using a .com extension. If you are going to be strict with what your blog or website would be all about, you may choose the appropriate end such as .org for organizations or groups or a community.

Others would even go creative with some rare extensions, like what AdFly has done: adf.ly.

4. One that’s very easy to recall, guess, and share

Once you have thought of a good domain name, you might want to check if that particular name is friendly for the mass. This means that your domain name must be easily recalled, guessed, or shared even by kids without going after several attempts.

Using the said .com extension is one big way to make your domain name easier to remember. Other ways to make your domain name easy and friendly are:

1. Make it as short as possible.
2. As much as possible, don’t change any letters to common words. ‘Lovers’ must not look like ‘loverz,’ for example.
3. Words that may be spelled in other ways like ‘center’ to ‘centre’ should also be minimized if not avoided.
4. If you want to integrate products or services to your domain name, as much as possible, name it in its plural form.
5. Don’t use jargons or other technical terms unless you wanted your site only friendly for those who are into the same field as yours.
6. As much as possible again, don’t use numbers. If you want to, be clear if you want the worded form or not, but do not mix. An example of failure is ‘twenty6.com.’

5. Eliminate symbols and special characters

One common mistake to making a domain name is that, they identify such manner with that of making your e-mail ID.

E-mail IDs are terrific with hyphens, underscores, and even numbers, more because you might have somebody else sharing the same name and surname as yours. However, for domain names, things must be different.

A lot of internet users fall into the wrong domain or website simply because they miss a hyphen, for example. Moreover, putting such symbols makes your domain name hard to spell out or pronounce (too bad not all individuals know what a dash is, what an underscore is, etc.).

If you want to stick with the rule of making your domain easy to remember, then this should also not be forgotten.

Another form of mistake associated with this fifth tip is the use of repetitive characters or words. Domains such as “clickkkkss.com’ can be very confusing, misleading, and hence, should be improved.

6. Use expandable titles

If you are starting out with an e-commerce site selling baby diapers, you may want to be careful enough not to limit your domain name to specific products.

If you used a domain name like ‘cathybabydiapers,’ what will happen if you expanded your business like selling baby toys and cradles soon?

The best thing here is to stick with a brand rather than a product or two. Or if you want, you may integrate something like a feeling associated with all of your products, such as ‘happybaby’ in this case.

7. Check for similar domains

The mentioned trouble with using different domain name extensions also affect the way people search for you. If you have an ideal domain name already such as ‘kingsley.com,’ you may want to browse along if somebody may have that domain name but with a different extension.

Others may even come with a slight deviation in spelling, but nevertheless, if you encounter any of these, you may want to make your domain name more unique and identifiable from the rest.

Check out also about some issues with copyright infringement and dropped domains. The best thing to do here is to do a little research about that particular domain prospect if it already has a history.