One of the hardest steps when taking your business, personality, or hobby online is deciding on what to call yourself and what domain name to acquire. Millions of sites have gone unnoticed, under the weight of a badly crafted, and erroneously chosen domain name. Choosing a domain name is essential to your tactics — it is one of the most fundamental parts of your brand. It allows folks to find you online and, if properly strategized and picked, it could mean the difference between having a successful presence online, or having a liability whose only real accomplishment is as a money pit you aimlessly throw money into. A domain name is one of the most essential parts of a good business model. Why? Because, like that old saying, “if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” The same can be applied to your website. “If you have content, great products, amazing services, but no one is around to hear about them or read up on them, does it even matter?” Your domain name, as well as backlinks, and SEO principles, is one of the forces that guide folks towards your business — It’s the magnetic pull that attracts their compass needle. In this article, we at DomainNetworks have included some of the best, and easy-to-follow tips, for picking, securing and optimizing your domain name.
H2: Tips on how to choose a possible domain name
In the following list, we’ll talk about things you need to consider when choosing your ideal domain name. Not just what to look for and how to come up with one, but logistic issues regarding how to register it, and how to secure it. At DomainNetworks we’re no strangers when it comes to choosing a domain name, and these are just some of the tips we’ve managed to come up with after years of experience.
H3: .Com
Whenever possible, ALWAYS go for a .com domain name. Why? Most folks are more familiar with the .com extension than all the others. Not only that but today’s IOS and Software are set for default typing and one of those defaults is “.com” into the browser address bar.
What if the .com has been taken?
Well, analysis shows that most websites, 47% of them use this extension, so the odds are high that when it comes to your domain name, .com, will be taken.
But, if it does occur, there are a couple of solutions:
- You can pay the current owner for the domain name, in many cases, it will cost you a lot more than if that extension was available in the first place.
- You could break the .com rule. What does this mean? For example, if your website is meant to cater to a local audience, let’s say a regional one, you could always try to snatch the local extension. For example, .it for Italy; .de for Germany; .uk for United Kingdom —- etc.
- If your website is catered toward a niche, you could always try to get creative and make the extension a part of your main domain name. There are hundreds of extensions, to the degree that every word can be used as an extension. Some of the most common ones are: .store, .blog, .design, . club, .shop.
H3: Buy all other main extensions
If you have the dough, then consider splurging on buying all the other extensions to your domain name —- that’s a number one tip from us at Domainnetworks.
Why? For multiple reasons.
- It will prevent people from creating imposter sites. Websites that look identical to yours whose only goal is to scoop up your audience and possibly scam them.
- Avoid the possibility of someone buying those extensions and domain names and then trying to sell them to you at that much higher rate.
- It avoids visitors accidentally going to that domain name when it was your business they were trying to get to.
Buying all the other main extensions – the .co, .net, .org, .in – avoids problems further down the line.
H3: Buy misspelling
Once more, if you have the dough, go for it. This will grow your annual domain bill. In general, some people tend to accidentally misspell words. If you can buy common misspellings of your domain name, and then redirect users who err to your main website, then you add one more pathway towards success.
H3: Brand
Domain names have to take into account the following rules —- the more they stick to them, the easier it will be for clients and users to remember them.
- No specific meaning.
- Easy to memorize — in other words, nothing too complex.
- Easy to pronounce and dictate.
- Something that sounds trustworthy.
- Short — no more than 15 characters.
- Simple — no hyphens, underscores, or weird words.
- Just words — don’t mix in other characters like symbols or numbers.
Use a thesaurus when coming up with a domain name that does your brand justice.
H3: Use today’s tools
Today, thanks to tech, the internet is full of different tools you can employ for your domain name creation some of them are:
- Domain Name Generators — all they need is one keyword or seed word from your or hoarse, and then they’ll give you tens or hundreds of suggestions.
- History — there are a lot of tools, like Wayback Machine, that can track records back – up until 2013 – and give you a report of your domain name’s history. It will give you an idea if the domain name is associated with something dodgy or was already used in a business venture that leads nowhere.
- Price — use tools to shop around for a good price. The main source and shopping emporium for domain names are GoDaddy, nevertheless, there are a couple more and some can give you a great price on your domain name. A price they maintain annually on renewals and one that, over time, adds up.
Folks tend to forget that, today, domain names are an extension – or vice-versa – of their social media handle. The second you have a good domain name, go online and track all the social networks you think you MIGHT eventually employ, and pick your domain name’s social equivalent. Remember that the average human spends one to two hours a day on social media. Facebook alone gets over 2 billion visits a month. Sometimes, your social media will get more traffic than your actual website.
H3: Set your domain name to auto-renewal
Do you want to know what is the most common issue we have to deal with at Domainnetworks when clients come to us for advice? Domain names that have expired. Folks have a bad habit of renewing their subscription. After an initial period, since you registered your domain name, it has to be renewed, otherwise, it becomes inactive. And, after a short while, it goes back into the available domain pools. This means that anyone can snatch it up.
What normally happens, when a domain name isn’t renewed is that a “domain broker” buys it. Why? Aged domains are valued in the domain marker. These brokers are aware that you will need it, and in some cases that it was a fluke, the fact you didn’t renew it. And, when they do sell it back to you, it will cost you a lot.
