Web Domain Registration

Poll

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Author:
Halstatt Pires

Picking a domain name should be easy, right? Why, I’ll just use my business name. Not so fast, Sparky. A good bit of thought should be given to selecting a domain name.

A Cautionary Note

Picking a domain name is like getting married. You are going to have to stick with it till the bitter end. People the use your site will come to know it by the domain name. Repeat visitors will often simply type in the domain name to get to the site, better known as “type in traffic”. As an example, do you search for “Amazon” when you want to buy a book or do simply type in amazon.com? If Amazon were to change its domain name to Desert, there would be a lot of confusion. The same goes with your domain. Once you pick something, stick with it.

Your Choices

Well, the obvious choice is your business name, but it may not be the best. There are four significant issues to consider.

First, is there something about your business name that makes using it as a domain an unwise choice? This situation typically arises if you have a long business name or have plural words. “Halstatt’s Rip’n Marketing Campaigns, Inc.” is going to be a horrible domain name. Clients are going to find it difficult to type in such a domain name.

Double letter problems are a second issue that is entirely unique to the Internet. What if Sams Salon wants to use its business name as a domain? The “s” at the end of first word and beginning of the second can cause confusion. Is the domain name Samssalon.com or Samsalon.com? Confusing your users is a bad way to run a site.

The third issue concerns the nature of your site and search engine optimization. If you are shooting for a particular keyword phrase, you may be better off using that keyword phrase in your domain name. Google, for instance, looks at the domain name when evaluating a site. If the words in your domain name are spaced with dashes, many believe it will help in the ranking process. This is why you see so many xxx-xxxx-xxx.com domain names on the net. If your business focuses on a very specific area, strong consideration should be given to using relevant keywords in your domain name.

Finally, your domain name should end in “.com” and I don’t want to hear any argument or see any rolling of the eyes. The simple fact is that when people think of sites, they always type in .com. Yes, there are other extensions and .us, .net, .biz, etc., may seem unique, but it kills your traffic. Pavlov and his dog experiments had it right. People have been mentally conditioned to type in .com, so don’t select any other ending. If you do, a smart competitor will register the .com version of your name to get some free traffic. If you are really lucky, a porn site will do it!

Take a breath before you select a domain name. Like a spouse, it can be either a good or bad choice.

About the Author
Halstatt Pires is with Marketing Titan- an Internet marketing and advertising company comprised of a search engine optimization specialist providing meta tag optimization services and Internet marketing consultant providing internet marketing solutions through integrated design and programming services.

A Quick Note From The Publisher... If you like the article above, you may be interested in the following article which is also related to Domain Names... Deleted Domains Can Kickstart a New Website Are you getting ready to launch a new website online with a brand new domain name? You may want to consider registering a deleted domain name instead. Here are some of the benefits to consider from this strategy. Take advantage of previous backlinks Quite a few deleted domain names still have a large number of websites still linking to them even though the site at that domain is offline. By registering that abandoned domain name for yourself , uploading content, and getting it live again, you can take advantage of these ready made backlinks in your quest for higher search engine rankings. Get traffic to your site from day one! When you register a deleted domain name, you can sometimes get traffic that was going to the old site at that domain name right from the day one of being online. This traffic will come from the backlinks, possibly some search engines that still have old pages ranked, and some people who had the domain bookmarked in their favorites and come back weeks or months later. Do your research though There can be potential problems with deleted domain names that is too involved to go in here. One thing I would suggest though is to do your due diligence and make sure that the deleted domain name will suit your purposes. Registering deleted domain names is only one of many strategies out there to boost traffic to new websites. Some people will register a large number of the best deleted domain names they can find, slap a few articles on it then wait and watch to see which ones 'stick'. Others will carefully research the deleted domains and only choose ones that have a completely clean past. Whatever you do, choose a domain that is focused on your main keyword and topic. Registering a domain with the keyword 'healthinsurance' for a free...