Tips on Domain Name Choice
Before buying your domain name, give some thought to the followng:-
1) If possible use your sites name as the
basis of your domain name
e.g
www.discountdomainsuk.com for Discount Domains UK. This might
seem common sense but not every site follows the convention. If
you use your name in your URL it will be much easier for your
customers to find you.
2) Generic names – if you can
register a generic domain such as toys.com that’s great, but
most of these have already gone. Also getting ranked in the
search engines is likely to be harder. Selected a domain closer
to your market segment will cut down the competition. E.g
toyplanes.com
3) Hyphenated Names – Its
easy to forget the hyphen! Which is the problem, particularly if
your customer remembers your name but not your URL. Though on a
positive note hyphenated names are less likely to be registered
already.
4) If the .com or .co.uk extension is not
available then consider the alternative TLD
( Top
level domain types) such as .net or .biz. If your domain name
has already been registered then approach the owner and ask if
they’ll sell. They may accept a £100. If you ask, they can only
say no.
5) Plurals.
Very often a domain
name will be free in the plural but not in the singular form.
It’s a personal choice, but if your prefered choice of domain
name is not available you might be stuck.
6) Short or Long domains
– A short
domain name is more memorable, but less likely to be available.
A longer domain is harder to remember, but can contain more
keywords which is important as some of the search engines, use
keywords in a domain name as part of the search algorithm.
7) Which Top Level Domain Type -
.com, .co.uk , .net etc This is a question I am often asked.
There is no evidence that any domain name type is given
preference by the search engines. However some search engines
such as Google, have local searches e.g www.google.co.uk which
do select local content. Customer often get re-assurance from
seeing a local TLD as they know they are dealing with a local
company etc. You can, of course, register all of them!
8) Variations – If your prefered
domain name is not available then its always worth trying a
prefix my e.g mydomains.com or suffix e.g domains4U.com etc
About the author:
Clare Lawrence is CEO of Discount Domains Ltd – A leading UK
provider of Domain name registration and Web Hosting services.
Please feel free to re-publish this article provided this
reference box remains together with a hyperlink to
http://www.discountdomainsuk.comClare can also be contacted
on clare@discountdomainsuk.com
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