Are You Stuck With a Crummy Domain Name?

Think about the search

Before selecting a domain name it's important to take into consideration how people will be searching for you on the internet. Your name should include a variation of your niche's keywords. A direct keyword match is ideal, but not always available.

Once you've decided to start a home business and settled on a niche, it's now time to research the keywords that are relevant to your business and website and identify the ones with the highest amount of traffic and lowest competition. This isn't always easy! However, I cannot stress the importance of going through this process before you run out and buy your domain name Let's face it, your domain name is a part of your business that will be with you for a long time. Pick a good domain name and it won't be long before you start seeing traffic coming to your website. But choose the wrong name, a name that doesn't describe who you are or what you do, you'll have an uphill battle before you and it can be many months before you start to have regular visits to your website.

So how do I find a good domain name?

Before I go any farther I want to say, this article is not about a step-by-step process of using a keyword search tool like Google's Keyword Tool, which is free or one of the premium keyword search tools available on the market today. All I'm trying to show you are some simple techniques you should use when searching for a good domain name that will give you maximum results. What are these easy-to-do steps?

Simple - Easy - Social

1. Make it Simple - A one word domain name is best. It's probably next to impossible to do today, but if you're lucky enough to find a single word that describes your site, then take it. Don't be discouraged if you need to create a phrase name instead of a single word. If "best.com", is already taken, then a variation, such as, "thebest.com" or "thebestsite.com" or even "thebestreview.com" will work. The important thing here (assuming you already did your research and determine the keyword has high potential for traffic) is to use the main keyword that describes what your site is about. In our example above we have a site about "Best". Very generic and maybe not a good example, but perhaps your website's about camping or fishing or whatever. The same rule applies; the ideal domain name will be "camping.com" or a variation thereof. A keyword phrase can work just as well as a single keyword as long as it's relevant to your site and a common search term.

2. Easy to Remember - This is the main reason a one-word site name is ideal, it's easy to remember. However, even a keyword phrase can be easy to remember too. When doing your keyword search, the search tool you're using will provide you variations of the keyword and popular keyword phrases. It will show you how many times that keyword or phase is searched every month. If you find one that has a high number of searches and competition is low-medium and it's descriptive of your niche, you found a good match. Even a keyword with "high" competition can be a good choice too. Especially if it's not being used as a domain name by another website.

3. Easy to Spell - This is important too! If it's not easy to spell then it won't be easy to remember. Avoid super long keyword phases. Stay away from numbers in place of words - "how to" instead of "how 2". Do not use hyphens - "howto", not "how-to". Never use another language for your domain name. You might think it cute to call yourself, "qui.com", instead of "yes.com", but you will have already ignored the first two steps we talked about and now added another strike against your website by making it hard to spell.

4. Don't - We just touched on this, but stay away from hyphens. If the hyphen is not placed properly or left out altogether, your customer will most likely end up on somebody else's site, but not yours. Do not use a well-known brand name. Just because the 'dot com' has not been purchased yet doesn't mean to go out and get it. You'll lose in the long run. Big corporations are just that, bigger than you. If you decide to use a brand name as your domain name it won't be long before you will one day find a nasty email in your inbox. The email will most likely be from a law firm or even in-house counsel telling you that you're in violation of copyright laws. You now have a choice to make. Either shut down your website voluntarily or have it shut down for you. Either way, you're done.

5. Do - Consider purchasing variations of your site's name. Most Registrars (where you buy your domain name) will offer you variations of the site name that is available. If your site name is "Bananas.com" consider the following variations: "thebananastore.com, or "bananas.net". You have to think about the person searching for your site or brand It's easy to add the word "the" before any site name, and before you know it, that person was sent to another website... not yours.

6. Social Networks - Here's another area you'll need to consider if you're in the e-commerce business; your domain name will be your Facebook and Twitter account name too. That is, if you want to maintain consistency between your website and social sites.

Final thoughts

There are more things to consider when selecting a name than just the six, I've listed above. Nevertheless, I believe these to be some of the most important ones you should take into account when deciding on a good domain name.

The old saying goes: 'sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me'. Well, in the virtual world of the internet, that's not always true. A crummy domain name will hurt you, and it will hurt for a long time. Take the time to think about your business, your brand, and the person searching the internet. If you apply the simple techniques listed above, you'll avoid a boat-load of disappointment and the spending of a lot of money for those pay-per-click ads to compensate for a poor domain name choice.

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