In today’s world, a website is one of the fastest ways of attracting attention to your business. And the first step to setting up a website is choosing a good domain name.
Somehow, there hasn’t been enough emphasis placed on choosing a domain name that attracts the right customers, so allow me to expound on this subject with some tips you can put to immediate use for your next website or blog.
1. Make Sure Your Domain Describes Your Business
What your website offers should be clear from the domain name. Don’t make your potential visitors guess at what they’ll find on your website.
For example, if your name happens to be Sue Brown and you own a hair salon called Sue’s Hair Salon, get a domain name like, www.sueshairsalon.com instead of www.suebrown.com. Seems pretty obvious, but you’ll be amazed at how many business owners use their personal names as domain names instead of choosing one that specifically describes their business.
Also, shorter is better because it’s easier to remember. It’s also easier for them to type, with less chance of spelling mistakes.
2. Choose a Domain With Your Keywords in It
Most websites rely on the search engines to a certain degree for getting visitors. If you use your keywords in your domain name, it can help with getting ranked higher in the search results.
Spending the time to research your keywords and find a domain that uses them, while still meeting the first criteria (descriptive, short as possible) is well worth the time.
Of course, there are other SEO tactics to implement for better rankings, but getting a keyword-rich domain name is the first step towards ensuring your website will be search engine friendly. Avoid using any weird characters like apostrophes and even hyphens in your domain name as this will eventually affect rankings.
3. Can You Use A Different Extension Than .com?
Yes and no. You could use other extensions like .net, .biz or .info but it’s not the best choice. Everybody knows .com but if your site uses something else, you’re going to have to market it a lot harder to get the correct extension in people’s minds. And if someone else already has the .com version, they’ll probably get a lot of traffic from people looking for you.
Another reason is when emailing, customers automatically assume every company ends with a .com extension and this can be devastating to your business if your customers’ emails keep ending up in your competitors’ database.
Unless you’re intentionally targeting to brand your business as, let’s say, a nonprofit organization, in which case the .org extension is highly recommended, then sticking to the instantly recognizable .com extension is the best way to go.
Don’t rush into picking a domain name. Take the time to research your market and find keyword phrases that people actually search for. Websites such as Wordtracker.com and GoodKeywords.com can help you with this. Taking the time to plan correctly in the beginning will pay off well in the long term.
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