As your checking this section, it is clear that you are planning to start a website/blog of your own and let me first congratulate you for the decision you have made (do you feel that I am too excited, yeah I am). Before you start with it, somethings are very important and worth considering before you actually start your blog. Creating your own online space requires some investment (both money & time) and needs a lot of attention. (I feel that it is the right time to work on before it is too late).
Being more specific with the topic which we are here to discuss, here are the top 10 tips and things to consider before you choose “your right domain”.
Choose your Niche
It is important to choose your niche before you start a website/blog, niche blogs will help you attract users with similar interest and makes them stick to your website and helps you in drawing more page views which in turn reduces the bounce rate of your website/blog.
A non niche or general blog which intends to cover all aspects of a particular field needs to be more brief about the topics covered and it requires more amount of your attention in order to make the visitor stick to your website/blog and it is best to go with a non niche blog when you start as a team.
Shortlist Keywords
After you decide about the niche, start short listing the keywords. In case if you are looking to start a “Blogging” niche website your best possible keywords will be “Blogging Tips”, “WordPress”, “SEO”. In this case, try to stuff the domain with your keywords and the best possible and keyword rich domains should be “BloggingTips”, “BloggingTricks” or “WordPressBlogging”.
It is preferable to have keyword rich domain names as Google will give some weightage for keywords in the domain name.
Domain Name Suggestion Tools
It is not possible to get “BloggingTips” as it is already registered so instead you try out the best possible suffix or prefix to your keyword “Blogging” and domain name suggestion tools will be your life saver here and will help you in determining different combinations and lets you choose the best possible domain from the list of available pool. Checkout Top 10 Domain Name Suggestion Tools.
Make it Easy to Remember
It is advisable to choose domains which are easy to remember as many of your visitors may not prefer to subscribe or bookmark or follow you (there will be few lazy bums like me) until and unless you are one of the prominent sources and in this case a catchy and most memorable domain will be more advantage as they recollect the name of your domain. For example it is easy to remember a domain “BloggingTips” as it will be more related to your niche rather than going for a domain with your name i.e, “raj.com“.
Make it Easy to Type
Many bloggers will choose the alternative domains which sounds more similar to the domain when the preferred domain of their choice is not available. For example bloggers may end up using “BloggingTipz” instead of “bloggintips”. In this case the chances of losing traffic to “BloggingTips” is high as the users will more likely remember “bloggingtips” and will end up reaching that instead of yours. So, avoid crazy combinations like this.
Short & Sweet
If you ask me for a personal suggestion, I will ask you to go for a short domain name (as far as possible) as it will have the advantage of not only being short but also the visitors of your website will also have a chance to memorize your website because of its short name and besides that it also helps you in creating your own brand.
For example if you choose “HostCook” as a domain name which offers web hosting deals & coupons it will provide a chance to create your own brand but when you use choose a domain “Webhostingcouponsandeals” you will never be able to create your own brand as it is more generic word to become a brand.
To add another, in our case we have preferred to use the domain “InfoGeneral”. As it is not available who have opted for “InfoGenra” which is short and simplest form of “InfoGeneral” and it also allows us to create our brand.
Check Copyright Infringement
Always play safe when it comes with copyright infringements, double-check the name before you register and make sure it is not violating any of the users or company’s copyrights or registered trademarks.
Avoid Hyphens and Numbers
Make rule to eliminate Hyphens and Numbers in your domain name until and unless you are very specific about them and you need them for sure. Even search engines will give priority to non hyphenated domains when compared to the domain names with hyphens.
For example if you wish to register “just-enquire” instead of “justenquire” you just question yourself about the possibility of losing traffic to the domain without hyphens.
Choose Top TLDs
For most of the people around the world .COM is the only domain and to gain advantage of this always prefer to choose a domain with a .COM extension. In case if you are very specific about the name better choose other Top TLDs (like .NET, .ORG, .CO) and you can also choose a country specific domain ( like .IN, .CO.UK, .US) if your intended audience come from a specific region.
Use Dictionary Words
Using correct dictionary words will always have an advantage as it is easy for you and as well as your visitors to memorize your domain name. As discussed in the “Make it Easy to Type” section it creates unnecessary advantage for the correctly spelled website.
Share your tips and experiences on choosing “the right domain”. We do love to hear it from our readers.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Very useful tips raj…followed some of them…using dictionary words is always an advantage…
You are right, short length keyword or one keyword is perfect for domain name and also easy to memorize. Thanks for great tips on choosing domain.
Glad that we are helpful..