A Simple Guide To Choosing A Domain Name

There has always been some debate on what are the most important factors that determine a good domain name. Choosing a domain name should be deeply tied to the niche you have chosen and also what you intend to do in that niche. If it is just for a hobby then there is less consideration than if you intend to create a business.

If you are more interested in a business, then the domain name should be chosen for its advantages in Search Engine placement and how that name will become your company’s brand. Other things to consider are the domain name’s size, how memorable it is, and if the name is taken in other similar forms or extensions. Whenever possible, unless you have a good reason for doing so, try to have a “.com extension”. Most people are used to typing in “.com” and will do so by default. You could very easily run into problems if you register a domain.net, but the domain.com is taken and developed. In this case, creating a brand for domain.net would be very dangerous and could very easily be confused for its”.com” counterpart.

Search Engine Placement Domains
The purpose of these domains is to rank high in the search engines, because the actual domain name contains the keywords being searched for. Search Engine domains are very rarely brand able, and are mostly used exclusively as side Internet properties to redirect traffic to the main site.

A company who sells blue balloons would benefit from acquiring Blue-ballons.com and Blueballons.net, because it’s natural that people will remember such an address, but more importantly, that domain name has a high probability of ranking at, or very near to, the top of a search for ‘Blue balloons’.

Brand Domains
An example of a brand domain is having an offline business and moving to an on line business. When this happens, the obvious choice is the offline brand name with a “.com” and/or “.country” extension. Country extensions are used in countries were there is more popularity in their country extension than on the “.com”. In the case that no previous brand existed before moving online, one would have to be very creative in the approach of a brand able name. Since there are millions of domain names registered, more often than not, the desired domain is taken.

There is a consensus among most Internet domain experts that the shorter the domain, the better. A domain that is about 5 letters long is highly desirable for a brand but is not always possible due to the millions of existing domain names that are being used. Even so, the domain must sound right as well. While www.Azqil.com fits into the 5 letter category, it is undesirable because it cannot be easily said or remembered.

General Term Domains
At the height of the Internet Bubble, general term domains were the most popular choice. Many companies failed, even though they had the generic word for their market. Companies like TheKnot.com refused to purchase Weddings.com, because they were so sure that they needed to focus only on their own brand. Although this strategy worked for TheKnot.com, generic words have a value of their own that cannot be ignored.

Like Search Engine Placement Domains, which attract a large number of visitors through search engine referrals, the same can be said of generic word domains. For this reason, generic word names are still very much desired and their value of them continues to rise.

If anything was learned about the Dot Com Bubble, it is that generic domains are not everything in a dot com business, rather they are just a component in a list of variables that make an Internet business a success. To see the current value of some of these domains, an online publication that covers recent domain name transactions is The DN Journal.
You can see it at http://www.dnjournal.com/domainsales.htm

Resources
A very good resource for getting your own domain is Godaddy.com.
It is very reasonable and has great forwarding and masking features along with your very own email address.

Before doing a domain name search it would be advisable to see what people are searching in your niche. A good way to do this would be by using a tool like Google’s Keyword Tool.
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

This will give you a good idea of the keywords that place high in the search ranking.

While all of this may seem a little daunting, in reality a domain name search usually begins sitting back in your chair, fingers crossed over the top of your head and the wonders of a new name racing across your imagination.

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.- Albert Einstein

To your success,
Fred Villareal

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