What separates an outstanding domain from one that’s easily forgotten? It’s planning! Whether you’re a self-employed superstar looking to take your solo-business online or a fresh startup looking for a domain name that’ll compete with the top ones in the future, this short and sweet article is for you.
Domain names are like your physical address, it is how your visitors will find you. It will be a virtual storefront – the site you’ll work so hard to bring to reality. However, unlike your own address, you must purchase a domain name and then register it. Domain names range from funny to quirky, long or short, and sometimes just odd.
The domain name you will use should be the same as your customer’s service or business. Alas! Oftentimes the most logical domain names are already taken. It may also be so long it’ll someone’s neck from reading it side to side. It’s a reality of online businesses that a different name must be used than the first best pick.
A perfect world is where all visitors to your site come from a search engine. In many cases, visitors will just do it the generic way – or by typing a site address into the address bar. Therefore, your name should be both short and clear.
However, simplicity and clarity are just the beginning for best practices when choosing a domain, here are others:
Keep it short and simple. You’ve heard this plenty of times, but if a business or service is to last in a vast world of competition, it must be simple enough to be remembered. You can shorten a long business name by truncating it.
If you really need to use a long domain name with multiple words, better separate each word using a hyphen.
Register misspelled alternatives. If the domain name you want contains a commonly misspelled word such as the word “beautiful”, then register the misspelled variant of the domain name as well.
Get a top-level domain extension. The top-level domain extension is undoubtedly .com. It has always been linked with businesses. On the other hand, .org is associated with organizations, while .net is used by a variety of organizations. Your best choice is always .com. You can also use the new .mobi extension if your site is only for mobile devices.
For local businesses or to identify your site as one associated with a country like Australia, it’s wise to purchase the .au extension for your domain as well.
Register the name using popular domain type. Your domain name becomes a valuable entity when a website starts to be popular. Some people will typically try registering a name like yours under a different domain.
If you have a site named “BeautyGlamz.com.” You don’t want others riding on to by registering the same domain name but with .net or .info domain, like BeautyGlamz.net or BeautyGlamz.info.
Get an easy-to-remember domain name. If your domain doesn’t need to have your business or service name, think of a short domain name that will be easy to remember by people who visit the site.
Get a keyword-rich domain name. Getting traffic is the chief concern of most site owners. Therefore, getting a domain name with associated keywords of your business or service is an excellent way to generate traffic.
Say you’re in the makeup business, including makeup, brushes, or beauty as part of the domain name can get you closer to the top of the search engine rankings.
There you go! These are just some of the best practices when choosing a domain name bound for business success. You can use a free tool like the one offered by Crazy Domains to check available domain names and their associated cost based on the keyword you enter.
