What You Must Know When Choosing a Domain Name
A domain name is much more than a URL which you type out in your browser. Your domain is an extension of your business. It’s your brand.
We all know popular domains such as Amazon, Google, Yahoo, Facebook and much more. The truth is that getting such brand awareness is not only extremely difficult, but also insanely expensive.
The average online marketer will often not be able to get such a degree of brand awareness for their domain. Nevertheless, there are a few steps that they can take to be memorable in their niche.
This is akin to being a big fish in a small pond… and quite frankly, that’s enough to be profitable.
- Make it memorable
Gone are the days when marketers named their domains after an exact match keyword just to rank better on Google. For example, besttoycars.com.
Google has caught on to that now, and as a ranking metric, it no longer works like it used to. Nowadays, you want your domain to be memorable and authoritative. Or catchy.
If we follow the earlier example, you may name your domain – toycarcentral.com. The word ‘central’ makes it seem like your site is the go to place for toy cars… and since ‘toy car’ is a keyword, it tells the search engines what your site is about. It’s a win-win.
- Use a reputable domain registrar
You’ll want to shop around when registering your domain. Some domain registrars charge less than $10 while others charge much more.
So look around for the best deal.
- Avoid using the hosting provider to register the domain
It’s best to keep your domain registrar and hosting provider separate. There have been many cases where marketers who wanted to move their hosting to another provider but faced hassles because the hosting company they were currently with were holding their domain hostage.
So use a good domain registrar to buy a domain and find a different company to host your website.
- Avoid confusing domain names
When buying a domain name, you’ll want to avoid names that have hyphens in them, for example: vegetable-gardening-made-easy.com
Firstly, the domain name is too long. Secondly, using hyphens makes it more difficult to remember how to type out the domain in one’s browser.
Using numbers in the domain can be confusing too. For example, selfdefense4you.com
People might type it out as selfdefenseforyou.com and never see your site. So you don’t want such confusion in your domain.
Having domain names with repeating letters is best avoided too. For example, diaperreviews.com. Notice there are 2 ‘r’s in the domain? Confusing. Avoid it.
Come up with a domain name that’s short and memorable.
- Check the competition
Generally, competition shouldn’t be an issue… but you’ll definitely want to do a few searches to see if your domain name sounds very similar to other domains currently out there.
Trying to be unique means standing above the noise. It’s harder to do that if your domain sounds like everyone else’s domain.
- Don’t use trademarked terms?
Before you buy a domain, you’ll want to check that none of the words in your domain are using trademark names. You can check for trademarks here. https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/search
- Are social media handles available?
These days, if you’re not on social media, you’re nowhere. That’s just the way it is. Your online business will preferably need to have a:
- Facebook page
- Instagram account
- Twitter account
- YouTube channel
So you’ll want to ensure that you can open accounts in these platforms with your domain name. This will keep things consistent and congruent.
If the names are taken, but the domain is available, you may either want to come up with a new domain name, or a social media handle that’s ‘close’ to your domain name.
- Looking for domain ideas?
Sometimes, coming up with your own domain names can be difficult. It’s understandable. The good news is that there are several online domain generators that can spark new ideas for you and help get your creative juices flowing.
Here are 3 you can use:
- https://www.shopify.com/tools/domain-name-generator
- https://domainwheel.com/
- https://www.nameboy.com/
To wrap things up, always remember that while you can change your hosting, autoresponders and other parts of your business, your domain is something that you’ll not want to change ever.
Once people start visiting your site and remember your domain name, changing domain names will be an inconvenience because you’ll need to redirect your site and so on. Not to mention that the branding takes a hit too.
Spend time brainstorming different names and choose your domain name wisely. That’s the best way to go about it.
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