5 Tips for Choosing the Best Domain Name

Many assume the first step to starting your own website is design, but choosing the right domain name is equally important—in fact, perhaps it’s the hardest part of the site creation process. If you consider the difficulty in transferring websites to new URLs – not to mention the potential SEO losses that could occur by doing so – it’s clear that you need to get things right from the start.

These days it’s harder and harder to find an iconic, easy to remember name that also happens to be available. What happens when the domain name you’d like is owned by someone else? You could try to purchase the domain from the owner if it’s that important to you (use “whois” to find contact info). But this can sometimes prove costly, especially for a startup that can develop a similar alternative for free.

Most small to medium business sites (those in the top 10 in SERPs) achieve placement in the top 10 rankings using branded keywords. This is just one reason why it’s important that your domain name matches your brand.

1 – Name Your Brand

The first thing you should do is consider what urls are available to you—then choose your brand name accordingly if you can. Be creative—do your research and see who else is using that name or anything similar. Be original, exciting and innovative when naming your brand—the same way you should be with your product.

2 – Tie Your Brand to the Domain Name

Your domain name should match your brand. Always choose one that doesn’t need explanation. Here’s a list of twelve domain name helper tools.

3 – Don’t choose a domain based just on keywords in the URL

Main keywords are not the key for high ranking in your domain name, although this is a factor. Think out a memorable, brand-related and available domain name, but don’t get obsessed with it. And keep it short and simple if you can, like JANE. One of the biggest problems with buying domain names is domain abuse. Existing backlinks in Google (“link:www.yoursite.com”) should always be checked beforehand (Wayback Machine is great to ensure clean domain names).

4 – Don’t Try to be Clever

Forget about hard-to-spell, long and clever words or anything too complex—unless you want to make it hard for people to remember your url. Do yourself a favor: dump the cutesy names and don’t use numbers—they won’t help. Best practice? A name with only one possible spelling.

5 – Extensions Matter (.com, .org, .net, etc.)

As of June 2013, there are 110 million .COM, 15 million .NET and 10 million .ORG domains on the web. Because most people still assume that .COM is the only possible choice, it’s the better option.

6 – Misc

Make sure you’re not infringing on anyone else’s copyrights. Always register your domain for the maximum period. Choose a top publishing site like Blogspot or WordPress (you can check their ranking here).

The creative process of choosing a name for your website is just as important as choosing a design for it. Just as you need a rational, strategic way to run your business, finding a memorable and successful name for your website requires that same rational strategy.