Picking up the right domain name

Yeah, yeah, its easy! Just go to your favorite registrar’s website, enter a few details (side note…the word “FEW” is not applicable to Godaddy in this context), and presto; you got a domain name registered. In your face Richeal!!! My first blog entry, and I have already failed miserably. Or have I?

Ok brainiacs, before you think that choosing the RIGHT domain name is so easy, read this article. I am sure that this blog post will change your perception on the RIGHT steps in registering a RIGHT domain name. So here I go…

Take for example, you are running a business “THE DAMN BEST WEBHOSTING COMPANY”. Will you go ahead and use your business name to register the domain? In many cases yes..But in many right cases, NO! A lot more thought and comprehension is needed.

Think of registering a domain as buying a new mansion with all your life saving, bank loan, and the few pennies in the jar…combined. Think of it as your property. Once you acquire it, you have to stick with it till the very end. Mess it up; and either you are on the streets, or if lucky getting three square meals in jail. Same with domain names. Register a wrong domain, get ready to be acquainted with a life of miserableness and of course banging on the desk and swearing your heart out.

Type in Traffic

Choose a domain name that is easy for people to remember. Type in traffic usually accounts for a significant percentage of hits. Take this scenario, E-bay. If you want to go to the E-bay website, what would you type? ebay.com in the browser address bar, right? Now imagine if ebay’s URL was “thebestauctionbuyingandsellingwebsite.tld”. Would you type that in the address bar? Going back to my first case, would you type thedamnbestwebhostingcomany.tld? If I am an average person, I would not! If say a million average people do not type the above to reach this website, what would happen? Yes, you guessed right…”THE DAMN BEST WEBHOSTING COMPANY” just lost a million type in traffic. However, if the domain was shortened to something such as, webhosting.tld, bestwebhosting.tld or similar, people would find it easier to remember and type in the domain name.

Select a domain and stick with it

Nowadays, domain names have become so cheap to register that you can literally purchase hundreds of names without affecting your budget. A dot com would cost you anything between $2.00 to $15 dollars. Hell, Its even cheaper than the daily pocket allowances of some kids. I brought this up for one reason. Just recently, my friend started a website and initially registered a domain. Later on, he realized that the domain name did not rightly describe his website, so he registered another domain and ditched the first one. When I heard of his actions, I was dumbfounded. Just imagine the volume of “type in traffic” he must have lost. He even cared less to leave the initial domain parked on his website. Imagine if eBay changes it name to fbay. There would be a lot of confused people around. Similar concept applies here, but on a smaller scale. The moral is, pick up a domain name and stick with it.

Domain name selection choices

If you are an organization, the first and obvious choice is your organization name. However, this is not always the wisest choice. Reason is my earlier illustration of thedamnbestwebhostingcomany.tld. It would be a horrible name indeed. Another is the “double letter in the domain” issue. What if Richaels Supermarket uses its company name as the domain? the double “s” here can cause some issues. Should the domain be registered as richaelssupermarket.tld or richaelsupermarket.tld? This will obviously confuse your type in traffic.

SEO and domain names

Search engine’s no doubt account for the largest percentage of website traffic when compared to any other methods. And Google is the strongest player in this game. Therefore, if your website is focused on a very specialized area, its always a good idea to give extra consideration in including the keyword somewhere in your domain name. Google and MSN usually take a look at the domain name when “spidering” a website, so it adds an extra bonus to your keyword ranking process.

Now the “constructive” myth

A domain name should have a .com TLD…period! This is a myth that takes a stronghold on some new webmasters as well as some established ones too. While this argument holds no water from a SEO point of view, having a .com TLD has its own advantages. Realistically speaking, a very very very large percentage of internet users have no idea on SEO, SE ranking, domaining, etc. For most of them, Google is internet. Others (type in traffic) would just end any domain names with a .com TLD. In simple terms, whenever someone thinks of a site, they have a tendency or are mentally conditioned to end it with a .com. While other extensions offer you greater chances of getting your domain name choice, they may not always get you the traffic. You may loose most of your traffic to the .com counterparts.

After reading this article, you may realize that registering the RIGHT domain is not a series of simple steps. It takes a lot of consideration in order to propel your website to greater heights. If you think otherwise, feel free to comment so. If you agree with my entry, or have some valuable inputs of your own, please include them in your comments too.

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