How to Choose a Domain Name

Are thinking about putting up your first website? Well the first thing (and one of the most important things) is getting a domain name. Not just any domain name, but a domain name that is perfect for your particular business.

A domain name is what you type-in to take you to a particular website that follows the http:// or the www in your browser address bar. The domain name for our website is “makingmoneyonline.com”. In my opinion it is perfect for this particular niche blog. As you will see it fits in all the requirements for choosing a great domain name below. The only negative thing is, it might be a little too long, but there is really no way to get around that.

One of the main things in choosing a domain name is you want register one that is memorable, as you don’t want people to have to look it up each time to find you. If they have to search through their giant list of bookmarks to find your website, it could cause you to lose a lot of repeat visitors, and it most definitely will hurt you with word-of-mouth advertising.

Below is a list of the things that I believe are important in choosing a good domain name:

Always Try and Get a .com
Domain names are available with all sorts of extensions, not just .com’s. You can register domains with; .net, org, info, .biz, etc… the list is quite large and it is much easier to find available domains in those other extensions. Some people will tell you that the extension is not that important, but I would tend to disagree. Sure there are many businesses out there that are successful using other extensions, but I am pretty sure if the dotcom version was available when they first registered their domain, they would have chosen it first. There is an exception with the extension .org, as it was created to be used for nonprofit websites, even though it is not always used in that way.

People just associate domain names with .com’s, just like they associate Google for searching the web. In the United State especially .com would be considered the Beverly Hills zip code of virtual real estate, so if you can, always try and get a domain with a .com extension.

Register a Domain that is Meaningful and Easy-to-Remember
Make sure that the domain you choose is memorable. You don’t want people to have to lookup your web address each time they want to visit your site. If you already have a business name the first thing you should check is if it is available. So if your business is named “Big Crazy Tattoos”, you should first do a search to see if “BigCrazyTattoos.com” is available. If that is taken, you might want to try something like “BigCrazyTattoosOnline.com” or something similar.

Some search engine experts say that you should register your domain with hyphens in it, for example “Big-Crazy-Tattoos.com”. They say you can get better search engine results with the hyphens. That might be true (I am not positive it is), but I don’t think the positives outweigh the negatives when it comes to hyphens. Any time you verbally tell someone the name of your site, you have to tell them to make sure that they put the hyphens between each word. Now seriously, how many times do you think someone is going to remember to do that? Plus, any time you mention the domain in audio books, commercials, teleseminars, etc… you have to tell them not to forget the hyphens. To me, it is just not worth the extra hassle.

Now, if you don’t have a business name yet, picking out a name gets much more fun, as you can name your business after your domain name if you like. I could literally write pages and pages of different ways to picking a good domain name, but I don’t have the time or space here. Probably the most important thing here is to not rush out and grab the first domain name that is available, unless it is PERFECT for your business. Play around with different keywords that relate to your business and see what you come up with. A cool website that has software for helping you come up with unique domain names is called NameBoy.com. Years ago when it first was created, I spent hours and hours searching for domains on that site. I personally would not register domains on that site, as they are a little expensive, but there is not charge to use their search functions.

Make Sure the Domain Name is Spelled Correctly
This is really important, as you can lose a ton of potential traffic if you do not spell your domain correctly. I know a couple guys who advertise on one of our other sites, and when they started their company, they went online to see if their two-word business name was available, and it wasn’t. But they REALLY liked the name, so they thought it would be cute to change the spelling of both the words, so the started their business under that name and registered the matching domain.

Now if you actually look at the two words of their business and sound them out, it sounds correct. But if they told you the name of their company, you would have NO IDEA how to spell it. I just did a search on Google for their website with the correct dictionary spelling of the words in their business and searched through the first 10 pages of results and they were nowhere to be found. I did find 2 companies with the same company name however, and they spelled their business correctly and they were both on the first page of my search. Now I am not positive, but I am sure there is a good chance that they are losing some business to their competitors just because they chose to spell their name that way. So, make sure not to get cute with your spelling.

Where Should You Register Your Domain Name?
There are lots and lots of different places to register domain names and they all have their good points and bad. We actually have our domains registered at a few different registrars and there are things that I like about each. But if I were starting out today, I would probably registrar my domains at Godaddy.com, as they are one of the least expensive places to register domains, and they offer some good free addons. But when you register a domain with them you need to make sure not to choose all the other services that they try to sell you during the registration process. All you really need is your domain registered, nothing else.

So registering a great domain name is the first thing you need to do to get your business online. In a future post I will talk about buying domains that someone already owns and some different ways to approach the owner to get a good deal.