How to choose a domain name for your business

[melanymaldena]

Hi,
What do you take into account when choosing your domain name for your business? Do you go for ease for remembering for users? Do you try and get a similar one to a high traffic one? Do you stick only to .com or .net? Do you choose short domain names only?

 

[ericplotz1]

Stick to .com for SEO and short names for branding purposes. I do not use exact match domain as I see know reason for them. If you use the keyword in the URL then you kinda shoot yourself in the foot.

Say I did a blog on hip hop music and named it hiphopmusic.com. Say my focus is "hip hop music". Many of my titles or categories may contain the word "hip hop music" in it already. So variations of my URL may end up looking like this:

hiphopmusic.com/hip-hop/10-best-hip-hop-songs
hiphopmusic.com/clothing/hip-hop-hoodie
and so on....

You see, the keyword just needs to be in the URL. And if you have the keyword in the URL twice this is considered to be an over optimization and may get hit by Panda. It gets really bad when the keyword is a phrase (2+ keywords). So no need to include it in the domain name when page titles and categories are going to include the keyword in the URL.

You also want to be careful that with your categories and page titles over optimizing the URL.

Cheers

 

[velvet]

Hi melanymaldena,

A keyword rich domain can help you, but what will help you the most is if you can localize it.

Adding a place name will help you immensely if you have a local site.

I have done the same for several local sites and have most of the top of the page for several search strings with very basic sites for small business.

A .com TLD is generally considered to have more percieved value, but I am not a believer in the value of trying to get a decent search engine position if your site, and competition is more general.

Plenty of people have been chasing their tail trying that.

In that case it is better to get something that has a ring to it, and describes what you do.

Hope that helps some.

cheers, Mal.

 

[ulterios]

Some of my main rules for choosing a domain name:

1. Use a .com unless absolutely impossible. Most people type .com out of habit!

2. I prefer a good name that is unique and brandable.

3. Stay away from anything that sounds cheap and low quality. (example. cheaponlinediscountshoes.xxx)

4. Make sure any domain considered doesn't have a previous bad history that might follow it. (Spam, porn, drug, etc.)

5. Make sure there aren't any possible Trademark issues, now or in the future.