Web Affiliate Creators

There are several points to consider when choosing a new domain name, but before we go into that, just what is a domain name? A domain name is basically what visitors will type into their address bar to get to your website, such as http://www.spiceyournet.com – spiceyournet.com is the domain name here. In most cases your website name and your business name will be the same, this isn’t always possible however, and often the name you desire will be taken. In such a case it is still a good idea to have some of the words from your business title in your domain name. Keeping that concept in mind, let’s talk a little about keywords and search engines.

Search Engine Optimized Domain Names

Wherever you have the opportunity to tell search engine robots what your website is about, take it. If your business is named “Created with Love” for instance, but you sell quilts made by sweet old grandmas; I want you to ask yourself, how many people in search of quilts do you think search for “Created with Love” on a day to day basis?—more. Unless you’ve made your business famous recently, probably not many, so although it may look professional, createdwithlove.com is probably a fun and great business name, but not a great domain name. Although it’s a bit longer (we’ll get into this more later) in this case quiltscreatedwithlove.com is probably a better domain name. In fact, there are some pretty cool tools available online that will surely occupy a domain buyer’s time for hours as well as let you know just how many people are searching for which words every day. You’ll need to start by thinking about your targeted customer. Imagine you’re in search of your product, you’ve decided you’re ready to buy, you plan to buy online, now you go to www.google.com and what do you type into the search window? Hopefully you have some idea, and with that idea, we’re going to go play with a new toy.

Keyword Suggestion Tools

Overture offers the biggest and best keyword suggestion tool, this tool is available by download, but in my opinion, is kind of slow. So I use the<a href=”http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/”> Digital Point</a> version of Overture. Now take that term you came up with above, and search for it here, this tool will tell you how many people are searching for words related to your website on major search engines everyday. If no one is searching for it, it’s obviously not a real winner to people that do not have huge advertising budgets and are looking to buy a good keyword optimized domain name. From this list, you should definitely be able to come up with some general ideas as to keyword friendly domain names in fact; this might be a fine time to start making a list of ideas and options.

General or Niche Market Domain Names?

The next thing we are going to consider is which area you are going to promote in, if you’re making the website to sell right away, you’re pretty likely going to want to go generic, however if you are planning to keep the website, and grow a real web presence you are going to want to consider this before purchasing your domain name. Depending on the type of business you are in, and whether or not you plan to expand in the future, either of these options may suit you. If you sell Nike shoes online and are considering selling Adidas in the future, you probably don’t want to go with Nikeshoes.com something more along the line of shoes.com will later allow you to modify the website, without limiting yourself to the Nike niche market. However, going niche can provide you with a stronger Google presence for the terms within the domain name, so Nikeshoes.com will have a better chance when a user searches specifically for Nike Shoes. In my own experience starting with a niche website and then building out seems to work the best, so I tend to buy my domain names a bit more on the generic side so that they are easier to expand upon later, however you may find that a different approach works better for you.

How Many Words Should a Domain Name Have?

A domain name can be very short, or contain up to 67 characters, I have heard many arguments for both longer domain names and short domain names, and although I do not believe there is a definitive answer to this question, I will share with you some of the arguments on both side of the domain length coin. A shorter domain name is likely more memorable than a longer domain name, and shorter domain names have a better resale value later. In fact one word domain names that are found in an English dictionary have been known to sell for amounts that seem to me to be astronomical. So on the short domain name side of the coin we have memory, and we have money. You will want to keep memorable’ in your thoughts when choosing a domain name, but also keep in mind that much of your traffic will come via internet clicks, be it from search engines or from links on other people’s or business’ websites. With this in mind, let’s look into the possibilities with longer domain names: The longer domain name option gives us keywords, now don’t get me wrong here, do not go out looking to use all 67 of those characters and corner the keyword market. Be realistic, but if it takes 2-4 words to obtain the desired keyword results than it may well be worth it.

Hyphenated Domain Names?

There are some distinct disadvantages to hyphenated domain names, first and foremost is that you may very well be feeding traffic to the competition, if the domain name buyshoes.com is taken, and you’ve substituted with buy-shoes.com a previously happy and loyal customer might decide to shop with you again, this customer types your domain name into their browser, but by mistake forgets the hyphen, and your competitor, the one that beat you to the domain name may have just gained a new loyal customer. Or worse, that competitor might not be a very reputable competitor, and your loyal customer is about to be ripped off, thinking they are doing business with you. In addition you’re not going to receive a whole lot of word of mouth traffic, when a happy customer tells a friend about your great service, there’s a chance that they’ll either forget to tell their friend about the hyphenated name, or the friend will not get the address wrong. The obvious: You have to use your shift key when typing this character, it sounds a bit petty, but face it, we’re on the web, we have everything we want and need at our fingertips, and we’re lazy, we’re not going to do extra work to shop in your virtual store. On the upside of Hyphenated domain names, I’ve read before that separating your keywords in your domain names make it easier on search engines when keywords are to be decided, I’ve also read that it doesn’t matter either way. But there you have it, might be helpful.

Choosing a Top Level Domain Name

A top level domain is the last part of a web address such as the .com or .net or whichever top level domain you choose. To some extent, for the average webmaster, a top level domain name doesn’t really matter as most of your traffic will be type in traffic. This means your visitors won’t have to remember your domain name, they’ll just need to click it. However should they ever have need to remember your domain name, and if you have a poppin’ little website with a groovy shopping cart all set up and ready to take orders, you might just want some of those customers back again, you’re going to want a .com domain. Simply because this is what comes to mind when we head over to the computer to look something up. Even considering myself a fairly internet savvy person, I’ll often try whatiwant.com before heading off to the search engines, friends and family that are hardly internet savvy are pretty sure this is how one navigates the internet. Furthermore, on the subject of domain names, when you head to your favorite registrar to register your domain, they’re likely going to say something to the effect of … You’ve found a great domain name! Now protect it! Next they will do their very best to persuade you to buy every TLD available. This is silly stuff and a waste of cash for the most part, just a way for the registrar to earn an extra few bucks. Good Luck with your lists, and congratulations on your new website! Stick around, and we’ll be showing all about the wonderful world of website hosting soon!