Choosing a good domain name is very important for many reasons including SEO (search traffic), how easy it will be on your fans and making sure not to step on anyone’s toes (more on that later.)
Choosing a Good Domain Name
Here are 5 considerations to keep in mind when choosing the right name.
Keywords
For SEO purposes, if you can include keywords in your domain name, it will really help you. For example davescarrental.com will have a bit of an advantage over a car rental place at jiggernaut.com. Of course with so many websites out there, a lot is already taken so try being creative a bit. Keywords are great if you can include them but if your domain has keywords but doesn’t fit the rest of the considerations mentioned below, it might not be worth it.
Uniqueness
While davescarrental.com might be better than jiggernaut.com for keywords, at least jiggernaut is more unique and more memorable. More importantly, you want to make sure there isn’t already another website out there (especially an established one) with the same name. Don’t buy jiggernaut.com if jiggernaut.net is already taken. You could be forced to change your name later on if they trademark the name.
.com
For the most part, you want a .com domain but there are a few instances where a different one is good. If your website/blog is strictly meant for one country or is really country focused than a country domain is good like .ca or .fr. If you are an organization or a charity than you might want .org. Otherwise you should be .com. It’s good to buy the other main domains too and redirect them to you (for example buying yourdomain.net and redirecting to yourdomain.com to stop others from buying up those domains. Why should it be .com? When you tell your url to people and they don’t secifically remember the extension (.com or .net) they will automatically try .com first. It also seems more professional. So stay away from yourdomain.me or yourdomain.info.
Easy
Keep it as short as you can and make it easy to type and remember. Short urls are easier to remember in general but also show better in the search results. Easy to type means leaving out hyphens and strange letter combinations such as qyz or xvq. Keep away from numbers too, especially written out ones. With regards to keywords as mentioned above, keywords are good but not if it means having a really long domain. I wish biannualblogathonbash.com were shorter almost every day.
Trademarks
You don’t want to accidentally commit trademark infringement and get fined and/or have to change your name. Check the US Trademark website to make sure your idea isn’t already a trademarked name.
These are 5 of the considerations you need to keep in mind when choosing a good domain name.