A successful online business starts with careful planning. That’s why choosing the RIGHT domain name for your business is important. There are a lot of different schools of thought on how to choose a domain name – here’s what we’ve learned over the last 8 years:
There are two online business scenarios when choosing a domain name:
- Is your website a business website (offering products and services)? Or…
- Is your website a content website – these may also be known as Niche Sites (offering free content with revenue from ad sales)?
Under the first scenario where your website is for a business that sells products and services, you want to build a company brand name so your domain name should have these characteristics:
- Keep it short – under 20 characters if possible. This makes it easier to remember for your clients and prospects.
- Try to include keywords related to your business – we prefer to use a tool like MarketSamurai to help us find the golden nugget keywords
- If possible, avoid hyphens in the name
- Consider creating a memorable name that can be built up as a brand (think of Google, Zazzle, etc)
- Always try to register the .com or .net or.org version of your domain
Under the second scenario, your goal is slightly different, since a Content or Niche site relies heavily on keywords and search engine optimized (SEO) traffic, you should consider these criteria for your domain:
- Use a relevant keyword or keyphrase for your content site that also has a HIGH chance of competing with existing sites in the search engines. This is also where MarketSamurai saves you a ton of time and work
- Avoid hyphens in the name
- Always try to register the .com or .net or.org version of your domain
Now, you should have a better idea of what to consider when choosing your domain name for your business.
Tools Mentioned in This Tutorial:
- MarketSamurai for helping you save time and helping you discover the gold nuggets of keywords and phrases important to your business
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