Domain Name
Choosing your domain name is critical! There are a number of important concepts to chew over. Unfortunately, some of these concepts are not mutually compatible. So there are some big decisions to be made.
First ask yourself what are trying to achieve with the Domain name. Are you trying to make the name memorable? What we are getting at here is repeat business and easy recommendation. If the name is memorable, then the next time a visitor wants to visit your site, they can recall the domain name easily. If they want to pass on your site onto a friend they can easily remember the site. So which is easier to remember "Google.com" or "thegreatestsearchengineintheworld.com"? Get the point! Short names tend to be more memorable - but here's the rub - not many short names are available as domain names. Our advice is to stick with the top TLDs - namely, in our view, .com, .net, .org (if there are no legal issues), .info and possibly .tv (if your site is entertainment, media) and your country domain extension (so for the UK: .co.uk). Of course, this restricts the choice of domain names.
Memorable or descriptive?
Although Google, Amazon, Delicious, etc are not particularly descriptive of the service or product that they offer, they are certainly memorable! However, an alternative approach is to go with the descriptive domain name - such as WeddingGifts.com . It is obvious what this site is about and the name is relatively easy to remember. However, imagine, a few months down the line an old visitor to your site might want to return. Was it WeddingGift.com or WeddingGifts.com or WeddingPresents.com etc? You can see the problem.
Search Engine Perspective
Do the keywords in the domain name influence Google? In our experience it is a definitive YES. We 100% believe this is an excellent reason to go down the descriptive route for domain names. So say you are selling Chateaux Property - then the keywords "chateaux" and "property" are going to be the phrases that browsers will be typing into Google. Check on sites such as Wordtracker.com and nichebot.com for highly searched phrases for your "market". These will give you a clue for potential domain names. So the best domain name, in our example, will be www.chateauxproperty.com. Note there are no hyphens and we are using the .com TLD. It will be much easier to get top rankings on "chateaux property" with this domain name. Check it out!
Existing Domains
What other hints? Another key factor is the age of domain. Older domains are ranked better on Google. So first stop should be a site like GoDaddy.com and check out expiring names. Other factors to look at when checking through expired domain lists are any existing Google PR and inbound links from other sites. Google PR is measured on a scale 0 to 10. 10 being best! Rankings of 3 or 4 are great as a starting point and if they have lots of inbound links from other sites - that is great! CheckPageRanking.com will help you evaluate the domain.
Buying a Domain name
If you are being serious about your business, then buy the domain name for 10 years not the shortest term (1 year). Why? If YOU are serious then Google will also believe you are serious. Google will give you browny points in the rankings! Also, seriously consider buying combos - such as chateaux-property.com, chateauxproperty.co.uk, etc and point them with permanent re-directs to the main site. You will pick up more type-in traffic and stop cometitors trying to piggy back on your success.
| Howard Farmer |
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