Choosing a domain

You just can’t ignore the importance of choosing a domain name when you are all geared up to float your new online business. If you adopt a ‘what’s-in-a-name’ attitude when it comes to domain names, you may have to regret later. You may have to wait endlessly for visitors to come to your site just because you chose the wrong name.

Choosing a domain name is not as simple as it sounds. Registering your desired domain name involves a number of considerations and extensive research. But before that, you must know what a domain name is all about.

In simple words, a domain name is the solution to the problem of remembering IP addresses. Now you may want to know what an IP address is. An Internet Protocol (IP) address is nothing but a numerical identification system. All computers connected to the internet have IP addresses which act like street addresses, and they help the computers to communicate online. Let’s take the example of Google.com IP address: 64.233.161.104. If you type this particular set of numbers into the address bar of your browser and press enter, you will be taken instantly to Google’s home page. However, you do not use this set of numbers to access your favorite search engine, instead you type ‘www.google.com’ to reach the same page. Why is that? Because you know this name well and find it more convenient and easier to remember. Such names in technical parlance are known as domain names. Names are easier to remember than numbers, be it a telephone number or the number of your bank account. Hence domain names are used for accessing websites associated with a certain IP address.

Sometimes just typing the brand name, as it happens in brands that have become household names, can take an internet user to the brand’s website. But if your business is not that well known, you have to rely on search engines. You can significantly improve the volume of traffic to your site by ensuring better search engine optimization. The earlier your site appears in the results list of a search engine, the more visitors it will receive.

Any attempt in choosing a domain name should begin with concentrating on the keywords that your website mostly focuses on. Before hitting upon a domain name, some amount of online research is required to estimate which keywords have the maximum traffic. Your research should also focus on how often (or how less) other websites are using particular keywords for similar purposes. Overture keyword suggestion tool and Wordtracker.com are two very good online tools that can help you in this regard. With the help of these tools, you can estimate the amount of traffic you can expect to get for your website on a monthly basis by using certain keywords.

After this comes the main task of choosing a domain name. The domain name can include your main keywords, as that will fetch you higher rankings in popular search engines like Google and Yahoo. However, to see your name on top of the list, you have to do a lot more than just including your main keywords in your domain name. These other site-related improvements that can significantly improve search engine rankings are however outside the purview of this article.

Selecting a keyword rich domain can be a decisive factor that can give you the much needed upward thrust in rankings. One good idea is to hyphenate your keywords, as separation of keywords within a URL is best recognized by hyphenating them, which will take your website up a few notches.

Registering your company name as the domain name may be a good idea only if your company or brand is so popular in the market that consumers are likely to directly search for your company name and reach your website. This means that people should be tempted to instinctively type your brand/company name instead of the product name when they are looking for a particular product that you deal in. However, if this is not the case, it is best to choose a keyword rich domain name.

If you already own a domain name that is your company name, then it is better to let it be and not go for registering a new domain name and direct it to your website. A few years back, multiple domain names and gateway pages linking to the same website were okay; people could type any of your domain names and reach your home page. But this strategy of all roads leading to one web page can now boomerang with search engines. Now it is more sensible to give all attention to your website and focus on enhancing its individual pages by optimizing them well for search engines to stay on top of the search results for your keywords.

New entrants in the online business can greatly benefit from the technique I have suggested above. You should always focus on the keyword rich aspect of domain names before you register one. If your business is already on the internet, then don’t lose heart. You will always have the opportunity of christening a future business venture by choosing a domain name that does justice to all the tips that I have discussed in this article.