How to choose a perfect domain for your business

How to choose perfect domain for your business

Do’s and don’ts for Choosing Domain Name For Your Website Blog

Choosing a domain name is similar to choosing a company name.  A domain name represents a brand and that’s why it has to be easy to type, remember and pronounce. Nowadays it’s almost impossible to get a brandable, SEO-friendly, short and simple domain name but there are lots of tools that are useful to get a perfect domain name for any business.

Recommended Article – Free Domain Suggestion Tools To Get Best Domain Name

There are many considerations before purchasing a domain and most of the time you purchase a domain name that is not brandable nor easy to pronounce or spell. To avoid these common mistakes here is a short list of things you should do and should not do while purchasing your business name.

BRANDING – Your Domain Name Is Going to Be Your Brand Name

Your Website Domain is going to be your brand name so choose it wisely.

Do’s

 Your domain name should be easy to type/spell, easy to pronounce, and easy to remember.

Don’t

Avoid soundalikes for instance week and weak, male, and mail et cetera.

Avoid lengthy domain names because they could redirect to any other pages if misspelled.

AVAILABILITY – Check Your Domain Name Social Media Availability

If you want to leverage social media platforms for marketing and improve your SEO always check social media availability.

Do’s

If you want to check your domain name availability on social media namechk.com is a great tool.

Don’t

Don’t buy the domain just because the name is available on all social media.

Don’t join each and every social just because of the name availability. Research where your audience hangs out and focus on those social media only. Not every should media made for your business.      

FOCUS ON WHAT IS YOUR SITE ABOUT – Be Descriptive, Let Your Audience Judge What The Site Is About

Your domain name should describe what your website is about. What do you think about websitesmadesimple.org and howtomakemyblog.com aren’t they descriptive? Do I need to tell you what’s kind of content you are going to see on these sites?

Do’s

If you are going to target a micro-segment or niche then it’s always better to have a domain that has targeted keywords.

If you want to target specific countries or cities purchase domains accordingly like PhoenixGlassRepair.com or you can go with geo extensions like .nl, .co.uk, and .in

Don’t

Don’t be too descriptive for example iwillteachyouhowtobuildwebsite.com

Don’t limit yourself to micro-niche if you are planning to cover various aspects of the topic.

.COM IS BEST – Always Go for .COM, Park Other Extensions and Plurals

The .Com extension is never going to die no matter how many extensions are going to come in the marketplace.

Do’s

Buy extensions like .Net, .Org .Biz et cetera and forward them on your main website to avoid competition and maintain your brand reputation. Domain registrar offer discounts on bulk purchases.

People often get confused with singular and plurals like widget and widgets, so purchase singular and plural and forward them to the main domain.

Don’t

As I said earlier, if your business is targeted to a specific country it’s better to go for .nl, .in, co.uk et cetera.

GO WITH WORDS – Avoid Numbers and Hyphens

Stay away from hyphens and numbers as much as possible.

Do’s

Contradictory to the above statement, Do add the hyphen to avoid blunders like “expertSEXchange.com” which is actually experts-exchange.com

Don’t

People get confused between five and 5, so don’t use numbers.

Don’t use hyphens because Google doesn’t appreciate it.          

DOMAIN SHOULD CONTAIN ALL ALPHABETS – Avoid Letter Drops

You and I know what is Tumblr and Flickr and how to type them in the address bar but our grandparents don’t. Yahoo has parked Flicker to Flickr but if type Tumbler we go to tervis.com which is an eCommerce website, think about how much traffic Yahoo might be losing.

Do’s

You can park the domain to the letter dropped domain.

Don’t

Don’t drop too many letters because when anyone Googles it, it will show “Do You Mean This”.

KNOW YOUR DOMAIN BEFORE PURCHASING IT – Research Domain Records

All domains are not new, you may get an expired domain name that might be used by scammers.

Do’s

Always check your domain name on Archive.org to check its history, it might be owned by a spammer or banned by Google because of black hat SEO. Research by link:domainname.com and other search queries.

Use other search engines like Bing to check Domain records.

Your Facebook Debugger tools to know whether domains are blacklisted on Facebook.

Don’t

Don’t purchase a domain that has a bad reputation in the market.

Don’t purchase black-listed domains because you need to work harder to increase your search engine visibility.

FOLLOW LAWS – Copyright and Trademark

There are many words and tag lines that are copyrighted by big companies and if you purchase any of the domains you could get into a serious problem.

Do’s

If you really want to share your expertise in any of the copyright products or services, you can use abbreviations like wptutorials.com (WordPress), PSTuts.com (Photoshop) et cetera.

Don’t

Don’t swap the words it’s also not permitted. Consult with a lawyer before purchasing any domain which is similar to any big brand or product which might be copyrighted.

MAKE YOUR OWN WAY – Let Your Name Be a Brand

It’s an era of personal branding. NeilPatel.com, JeffBullas.com, MarieFarleo.com, and Mattcutts.com are a few examples of personal branding, they have millions of followers all around the world.

Do’s

Show your talent on the internet and be an internet superstar.

Try to be different from others with your distinctive personality.

Build your online portfolio and share your work with your community.       

Don’t

Don’t do it, if you are NOT passionate about personal development and branding.

CONCLUSION

It’s easy to purchase a domain but it’s harder to get a brandable domain name that fits your business. Your domain name is much more than words or sentences, a single alphabet can have a big impact on your business. So I hope these tips, do’s-don’ts, and considerations in finding a domain name are helpful to buying your next perfect domain name for your online business.

If you feel I’ve missed something please let me know in the comments.

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