3 Tips for Choosing the Right Domain Name
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Selecting the right domain name is one of the most important business
decisions you can make. When you have a business online, you are competing in a
global economy with millions of other websites.
The latest information from Internet World Stats counted over 1 billion
Internet users in 2007. According to Rich Miller of Netcraft, an Internet
monitoring company that has tracked Web growth since 1995, "There are now 100
million Web sites with domain names and content on them." Of the 100 million
websites, about 47 million of them are active sites and competing for visitors.
Here are some tips to follow in choosing a domain name that makes it easy to
find your business on the Internet:
(1) Choose an easy to spell domain name.
It does no good to have a website, if no one can find you because your domain
name is too difficult to spell.
Last week I was talking to someone and asked her who the company was that
designed her website. She told me the name of the company, and it was some very
strange name that didn't make sense to me. I had to ask her twice what the name
was and I then asked her to spell it for me. Unfortunately, she couldn't even
spell the name because she said the company had a strange spelling, and she
could never remember it. I then asked her for the website address, and she
couldn't remember how to spell that either. I ended up trying to guess a couple
different spellings for the website and never did find the company.
Don't get cute with your website name or for that matter, the name of your
business. You may think it's clever to spell fenikz instead of Phoenix, but
don't expect anyone to find your website.
I speak from experience on this topic. When I first started my business I was
completely ignorant about choosing a business name. I thought it would be fun to
have a business name that was a play on words. So I chose "Howe Write You Are
Business Communications." My last name is Howe, and I am a writer. So I chose
the domain name howewriteyouare.com.
When I would tell people my domain name, this is what they heard:
howrightyouare.com. They spelled the domain name exactly as they heard it and
the only way they would get the correct spelling is by looking at my business
card. I soon figured out what a dumb mistake I made and changed my business name
after the first year.
(2) Choose the right extension for your domain name.
When you go to register a domain name you have a choice of .com, .net, .org,
.biz, and some other rarely used extensions. Unless you are a nonprofit, only
choose a .com extension for your domain name.
The reasons for this are very simple. When people go to search for a website,
they assume it is a .com. If you have any other extension, they will end up at
the wrong website.
The other reason to have a .com extension is that search engines will search
first for a .com website. For example, a browser will look for quiltingtips.com
before, it looks for quiltingtips.net.
Let me talk a moment about strategy when it comes to choosing a domain name
extension. If you don't want a competitor to have your domain name, then
purchase all the extensions of your domain name. In other words, if my domain
name was going to be quiltingtips.com, I might also purchase quiltingtips.net,
quiltingtips.org, and quiltingtips.biz. This way, I insure that my business
domain name will not have competition from a nearly identical domain name.
(3) Choose misspelled domain names.
If you have a business name that you know is easy to misspell, consider
purchasing the domain name with the common misspelling. Both names can be set up
to point to your website, so it doesn't matter if your domain name is
misspelled, people will still find you.
In my previous example, I talked about my original business name and the
problems that I had with the unusual spelling of my business name. If I had not
wanted to change my business name, a simple solution for me would have been to
purchase the domain name howrightyouare.com and have that point to my website.
An example of a well-known business that is using this technique is Verisign.
If you type in verasign.com or verisign.com you will get to the correct website.
Conclusion Your domain name is your Internet identity. Make sure your domain
name selection is not an afterthought. Take the time to thoroughly analyze your
options and choose a domain name that promotes your business or product online.
About the Author
Michelle Howe, MBA, president of Internet Word Magic, specializes in writing
irresistible copy for websites. Transform the way you do business. Visit her
website at
http://www.InternetWordMagic.com for a FR^EE chapter download of her new
book "Turn Browsers into Buyers" and FR^EE report, "The Five-Step Plan to
Article Success."
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Article Published/Sorted/Amended on Scopulus 2007-12-10 19:56:45 in Computer Articles
