6 Tips On Choosing Domain NamesHow to choose domain names for your business.
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Esther C Kane September 17, 2008
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It's not easy choosing a domain name for your business website.
Sometimes your company name is already taken in a domain name, or it's
a very long name and you want something shorter for your website. Here
are some tips on choosing domain names to help you.
1) At this moment (things may change) a .com domain is better than a
.net or any other extension. The reason is that most people are
familiar with .com and will automatically type in your domain with a
.com extension. So, if your domain is flowers.net, your advertising
with of course showcase, flowers.net. But what most people will
remember is "flowers". They will automatically type in flowers.com and
THAT website (the .com version) will get the business that was intended
for you.
2) BUT, having said that, there is an upcoming glitch in this concept. The glitch is being introduced with Google's new browser, Chrome.
You see, one of Chrome's "abilities" is that it provides suggested
searches as the user searches AND the searches don't have to be
conducted in the search box, they can be conducted directly on the
address bar. For example: on Chrome, the user can go to the address bar
and type in "name tags"
(as an example"). As the user is typing in this phrase, some
"suggestions" come up from Google. The suggestions include the first
place Google listing for that search, popular websites for that keyword
phrase and recent history from your computer for that keyword phrase.
SO, if your flowers.net website was #1 on Google's search results for
the phrase "flowers" it wouldn't matter if it's a .net site, or .us.,
or .me, or whatever. Because if the viewers were searching for you on
Chrome your website would pop up in that address bar.
Of course, it's hard to say at this time how many people will be using
that feature on the Chrome browser but if Google's behind it, chances
are that at some point in the future, many of us will be doing it.
We'll just have to wait and see.
3) Try to avoid hyphenated names (like www.cranor-roofing.com)
only because most people don't remember where the put the hyphens and
it just makes the domain longer. It's true that if the words are
hyphenated then the search engines can actually read them but the days
when search engines ranked domain names higher because the keywords
were in them are long gone. They've gotten much smarter in the last few
years. (Search engines I mean).
4) Do your
best to get domain names that are easy for your customers to spell. If
you have to spell out your domain name each time, that can get very old.
5) If you've chosen a domain name and it's available, don't wait. Buy
it NOW. Even if you're not going to put together a website for a few
more years, it doesn't matter. BUY that domain name before someone else
does.
6) If your budget will allow it (and domain names are so inexpensive!)
purchase several versions of your domain. Purchase the .com, the .net
and the .mobi versions. This prevents anyone else from purchasing that
domain name AND it allows you to grow your online presence later on if
you are so inclined.
7) Choose a domain
name that's easy to remember. It doesn't necessarily have to "mean"
anything. After all, how many people know what "Google" stands for or "Twitter"? These are popular yet, what do they really mean? Nothing. But they're easy to remember.
Choosing domain names doesn't have to be difficult, but it is part of
your business branding process. Once you've established your domain
name you'll be using it most likely for the life of your business. So,
choose a domain name like you choose your child's name. Choose a name
that you like because you're going to be repeating it lots and lots!
If you have any other tips for choosing domain names, feel free to comment! |