Tips to Make Domain Name Registration Easy
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Stephen Wright May 30, 2006
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Registering a domain name can be a very straight forward activity – or
it can be labor intensive, stressful and a total waste of your time and
hard earned money. With a few simple basic tips and some advance
thought, you will be on “the easy path”.
The single most important ingredient going into domain
registration is the critical decision of choosing the right name. Put
in the time to do advance research into a name which reflects the
general topic and nature of your online business. This will go
hand-in-hand with the next element – keyword selection. There are a
number of keyword selection tools available (such as on Yahoo business
– formerly Overture.com, and Google). Combining you keywords
and domain name into interwoven terms will greatly help with search
engine optimization activities later on.
There is a growing availability of alternative extension variations
today. For example, .com, net, org, bus, ws. Info, etc. have all become
popular choices. With the explosion of internet traffic and usage this
trend will likely continue. However,
for the foreseeable future, until you have a widely popular website
that receives millions of visitors that will find you no matter where
you are, it is advisable that .com be used whenever possible. The com
sites still enjoy the largest concentration of search traffic on the
web today.
Do a basic search to locate reputable firms to handle your domain
registration and web hosting. A
lot of literature suggests having two different companies to handle
this, rather than one company doing both. While it can be a pain to get
this switched if problems arise, personally I have not heard or read of
this being a major issue. However, you should check a couple of forums
about this topic before starting your registration process.
The pricing and cost for registration and hosting have become
extremely competitive. Make sure to shop around for the right
combination of price, features, and capabilities of the firms. Pay
attention to the details of exactly what is included in the monthly
prices (and 1-time fees). While the monthly price may be lower from one
to the other provider – the cost for additional services may far
outweigh the initial low prices. Also, the amount of time
(duration) of the service agreement can save you lots of money as well.
The longer the service commitment, generally – the cheaper the rate
plan. I have found 12-24 months to be a reasonable commitment that
yields solid savings.
Regarding the choice of domain names, clearly shorter is
better. After all, who can type those long url’s without making typos!
No to mention shorter names are easier for you and your clients to
remember. Also, by choosing domain names relevant to your keywords (and
vice-versa) the search engines will reward your site on potential
customer searches. It is like have a double bonus! For example having
my website name of Internet Marketing USA, tied to keyword searches for
internet marketing in the USA a highly relevant match, gaining me
additional traffic for this combination of terms.
There you have it, some basic information to guide your domain
registration activities. Armed with these tips, you will be up running,
getting search engine traffic and revenues in no time. Copyright 2006 Stephen Wright
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