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If you already have a busy website and you like your domain there's no need to change it but as soon as you set up a new website or if you are going to rebrand your business with a new business name you need to consider carefully what domain name to choose.
For those of your who don't know the domain name is the base part of the address you type into the browser address bar to open a website. Like "google.com", "secretsearchenginelabs.com" or "cnn.com"
First of all you need to know what you are going to use the domain for. It could be any of the following.
- The website of your business.
- A niche website to make money from ads or selling a ebook
- A SEO website, like a feeder blog, that exist for the sole purpose of helping your business or niche website rank in the search engines.
Considering the different purposes a domain and website can have your might want to optimize your domain for some but not all of the following
- A short name that is easy to spell and that people will remember after they have heard someone mention it on the radio or if they read about it two days ago.
- A name the is built from the nr 1 keyphrase your are targeting with SEO
- A name that does not conflict with trademarks or business names already in use in your target market (or you could lose your domain to a trademark holder)
- A name you want to live with for many years (a lot of your marketing is tied to the domain name)
- A name without hyphens if possible
- A .COM or country specific domain for your business
- A .ORG or country specific domain for your organization
Your Business Website
When your select a domain name for your business, most of the time your want the domain name to be the same as the name of your business.
If you have a long or complicated business name it's usually best to select a domain name that is a short version of your business name, the name of a popular product you sell or a completely new name
Branding is important here and you want a short and memorable name that you remember from the radio or from a billboard.
Always go for a .COM or a country specific domain extension, like .CA or .CO.UK, for your business.
Use a country specific extension if the large majority of your customers are from a singly country. The country specific extension will help your search engine rankings in that country, but will reduce your rankings in the rest of the world. Many times a country specific extension will make your look more trustworthy in the local market.
Use a .COM extension of you sell to many countries and especially if you sell to the US. The United States country specific extension .US is not popular so avoid it and use .COM
There is a reason to not use .NET domains. Most people only remember the name part of the domain and automatically adds .COM when typing it into the browser address bar. This means you lose a percentage of visitors that go to the .COM domain instead, and if there is something interesting (perhaps a competitor) on the .COM domain they may never return to your hidden .NET business.
If you really want to have a .NET domain make sure to also register the .COM domain with the same name and redirect it the your .NET website. That way you don't lose the type in traffic that uses dot com by mistake.
The same goes for hyphens. Many times your visitors will not remember the hyphen when they type in your domain and you'll lose some visitors again.
Lets talk about domains for SEO and niche websites in a later newsletter.
Also remember to check out my list of best domain name registratin sites if you need a safe place to register your domains.
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