How To Choose A Great Domain Name

Posted by: Neil on Saturday, October 11th, 2008

What's the one one thing that your online business requires to stand out from the crowd and become a huge success?

The right domain name!

The domain name is what people type in when they want to get to your site - it's the part that comes after the http:// or the www. It's your virtual real estate address. Having something they won't forget without looking it up every time or keeping it in their bookmarks, to be lost among the all the other addresses, is the one thing you can do to get visitors to return to your site and word-of-mouth free traffic.

It's said that all the great names are gone, but that's about as as incorrect as you can get. Here are a few simple guidelines that will make your domain name -- and your business -- a popular and memorable web destination.

1. Choose a Dot-Com The primary rule is, go for the dot-com ending, which is typed as .com. This is the Main Street of the virtual real estate world, and the one that most people will enter into their browsers regardless of what your domain extension actually is. While .net and .org were popular for a while, and then .us, .biz,.info and .name took the stage, people always revert back to .com -- no matter how many different country code top level domains are launched into the mainstream, like .cc, .ws, .to, .cn and others.

2. Choose something memorable You want your business name to be your domain name too, if possible. So if your flower shop is called Felicty's Flowers, you want to get felicitysflowers.com, assuming it's available. If that domain name isn't available, try adding a dash, like felicitys-flowers.com or a secondary descriptive word like felicitysflowersonline.com or prettyfelicitysflowers.com. If you're creative, you'll have no problem coming up with a name that matches your business name and is one your customers will find memorable.

Don't forget that if you use a dash in your domain name, which some Search Engine Optimization experts say attracts more free traffic to your site, you need to say the dashes if you use your domain name in an audio product or commercial; so it would be "felicitys dash flowers dot com".

Most people typing in your domain name later will not type the dashes.

3. Get Another Name Variation If you're fortunate enough to grab a great domain name without the dashes, then you might want to get the same name with dashes between the words as well. You can put both of them up on your server as mirror sites to get the benefits of SEO as well as the ease of typing without the dashes.

You should also consider getting the .net or .org variation or even another extension or two to use as sister sites for your main dot com site... maybe you could place your forum on the .net, or use your .com for your main product and .net for your business background information site.

Even if you're looking for a domain name that you don't really think will be available, using your creativity and trying a variety of word combinations will allow you to come up with an unforgettable domain name that will attract people to your website.

It can be quite time consuming checking domain name availability as you find each successive name you come up with has already been registered.

So why not buy an expired domain name? Don't know where to look? You'll find hundreds, if not thousands, of domain names for sale on our site: http://www.crazydomainsales.com

Now,If you need assistance with obtaining a domain name to suit your requirements, use New Domain Advice and to register a new domain name the services and charges of Shop Shop Domains are excellent.

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