Picking The Right Domain Made Easy

If choosing a domain name was easy, every site would have a memorable name.

As you know, this is not the case.

If you were asked, you wouldn’t be able to recall the names of many sites you opened yesterday, unless you have been there many times or unless they were well-established domain names.

A good domain name is important for every business planning to go online.  Besides branding, it has quite a few benefits.

The infographic below on domain facts details more such benefits and a few tips on picking the right one.

How can you make sure that your yet-to-be-born site gets a memorable, catchy domain name?

Try out these tips. They have worked for others, and there’s no reason why they will not help you find a name that is appealing and easy to remember.

Image credt: Pixabay

Go with the .com TLD

The term TLD stands for the top-level domain name. It denotes the end part of the domain name. For instance, in the domain name youtube.com, dot-com is the TLD.

The .com is the most popular TLD, used in over 134 million registered domain names.  Because a vast majority of internet users tend to automatically type the .com at the end of the site name, you are likely to better off using the .com TLD.

That said, there are exceptions to this rule.

If you are catering only to a local population and don’t plan to go global in the future, you should consider alternative TLDs. Your business might benefit more from having a domain name specifically for your geographical area, like .us or .ca.

Such a TLD can help you build awareness. A country-specific domain name tells users your location right off. As many people prefer to do business with a local service provider, a country code top-level domain (ccTLD) can help you improve your trustworthiness and, consequently, boost the chances of attracting clients.

For instance, a domain name such as topwebart.us straightaway tells users that this is a US-specific business.

You can make your domain name even more effective, particularly from the point of view of local SEO, by including your location in it. For example, let’s say your company topwebart is based in Michigan. A domain name such as michigantopwebart.us reveals that your services are not only country but city specific.

As you may guess, this strategy is for region-specific business. More people than ever before conduct local searches, so placing your location in the domain name is a smart move as it makes your business more searchable within a specific area.

Purchase other popular TLDs

If you don’t want others to ride on your success, you should think about purchasing other popular TLDs.

Often untalented and unscrupulous online marketers try to use their competitor’s popularity to their advantage by using the same domain as theirs with a different TLD. As a result, any visitor who types a wrong TLD will land on your competitor’s site.

For instance, continuing with the above example of topwebart.com, let’s suppose a rival registers domain names such as topwebart.net, topwebart.org, topwebart.co, topwebart.us.

Now visitors who get your TLD wrong will end up visiting your competitor’s site instead of yours.

Would you want that?

No. Then buy other main domain names and redirect visitors from there to your primary domain name.

Choose a simple and memorable name

Have you ever come across a situation wherein you wanted to know more about the business but just couldn’t remember its brand name?

If you don’t want your potential customers to have the same experience with your business, consider picking a domain name that’s catchy and easy to spell, pronounce, and remember.

The main goal of advertisement and promotion is to ensure your target audience hears and easily remembers your brand name. This is where a simple, memorable brand name can prove priceless. For instance, think about google.com. There’s nothing flashy about it, but it does have a nice ring to it and is very memorable.

Besides being easy to recall, a short, sweet and clear domain name helps instill a sense of familiarity among viewers.

However, as there are hundreds of thousands of registered domain names, you may find that all one- and two-word names that can be used with your product or service are already taken.

You can go with a three-word name, but avoid picking a name that’s too long because then it will be not easy to remember. Otherwise, consider a combination of an actual word and a random suffix, as long as the result is appealing and memorable.

You should also avoid using numbers in your domain name, unless absolutely necessary. Hyphens and special characters are another big no.

Last but not least, you may want to register common misspellings of your domain name, especially if it’s spelling is a bit confusing. For example, if you are a content writing service with a descriptive domain name Mykewrites.com, you should also register Mikewrites.com. This is because most people, if not all, by default, will write Mike instead of Myke.

Add a broad keyword sensibly

Keyword-rich pages don’t work. They stopped working from 2012 onwards, when Google went after keyword-rich sites with poor content.

So, if you are thinking of stuffing keywords into your domain name, something like cheap-door-replacement-window-repair.com, stop right there. Such a domain might you more harm than good.

That said, if it is possible to use a broad keyword naturally in the domain name, by all means do that. A case in point is a domain name such as Michiganroofrepair.com for a local roof contractor business.

This domain name actually comprises of two keywords: Michigan and roof repair. However, it doesn’t sound spammy. Instead, it is simple, memorable, and descriptive.

The long and short of it is if you can add one or more broad keywords in the domain name without compromising the quality of the brand name, go for it; otherwise, not.

Ensure its available on social media

It can be particularly galling to come up with a nice domain name only to find that someone else is already using it on popular social networking sites.

Therefore, before you register a domain name, check if it’s social media ready, too.

You don’t need to search all social media sites individually to check the availability of the shortlisted domain name. You can have an online tool, such as Namecheck.com and Knowem.com,  do to this work for you.

Along with checking social media viability, make sure the selected name is not trademarked. If it’s and you still use it, you may end up entangled in copyright problems sooner or later.