Tutorials > Webmaster > A Winning Domain Name
Choose the best domain name that will help lead to your business's success.
The Name
Choosing the most appropriate domain is the first and one of the most important decisions you will make for your new business. Your business's name is the first impression visitors will have about your business. An easy to remember domain name that gives visitors an idea of what your business does can help determine the success of your online business.
When choosing a name for your business, make sure it gives the visitor an idea of what your business does; if your business is going to sell flowers, don't name it the Dollar Store. If you choose to use your name in your business, make sure you add a word that again, describes your business.
The Domain
Once you have a name chosen, you will need to decide what domain you are going use for your site. Consider the following when choosing your domain:
Don't choose a domain that reads like a book, such as 101guaranteedwaystolooseweightinaweek.com. Instead choose a short 1-3 word domain name that is still relevant to your business. As you add more words to your domain you make it harder to remember and run the risk that visitors will misspell your domain and possibly end up at an explicit site or even your competitor's site.
Avoid the use of hyphens or dashes. Hyphens are a great way to break up keywords in your site's domain name for better rankings on search engines, but most will forget and assume that your site's domain doesn't contain hyphens. Since people don't expect them, they may end up at your competitor's site that has the exact same name as yours, only with an easier to remember domain name without hyphens or dashes. Trying to be clever and tweak a competitor's name could backfire on you.
Choose a domain name that contains your site's primary keyword. One of the main factors that Google uses to rank the pages in its index is the keyword in the domain name. A good example is the acronym SEO. If you do a Google search for that term you'll see that over half of the pages listed in the top 10 have that term in their domain name.
If possible, try to choose a top-level domain, such as a .com domain. Many associate .com domains with trustfulness and stability. If the .com you want isn't available, see if the same name is available with a .net extension. Usually people think .com first, and if they are looking for you and put .com in by mistake, you sure don't want them to end up at some porn or hate site.
Conclusion
You are going to have to live with your choice of domain name for a long time. Take your time and choose wisely; you'll thank yourself later on.
