How to Choose and Purchase a Domain Name

So you have a business or a business idea and you’re ready to buy a domain name to start your web business. There’s a few things to consider. It used to be necessary to have relevant keywords to your business in your domain name to achieve higher search results. Not so much anymore. The most important aspect to decide on is branding vs. name familiarity in your area of business. Is your idea a new concept? Or has your brand name been out there for a while? This is an important area of your business you need to understand when deciding on a name.

For branding, your overall strategy will be focused more on advertising than getting great search results because you’re presenting your product to people who may not know about it for the first time. This type of marketing strategy is to saturate the web with your name and associate it with your product. For an already known name or product familiarity, you’ll rely less on advertising but will focus more on search engine results. This is because people may be familiar with and know your product but they may not how to find it easily online or through search.

Shorter, easy to remember domain names are most desirable. But since the web is saturated with domain squatters* who have bought most of the great and easy to remember domain names. It’s harder to come by a unique easy to remember name so you’ll need to get creative. Domains with dashes are ok when in a pinch for a name you really want (my-domian-name.com) just try and keep it to about three words max. Purchasing multiple variations and common misspellings of your domain name is also normal procedure. This ensures if someone types in your name wrong, someone else won’t buy that domain and profit on it directing a user to a competitor site.

Domain names are typically $9.99 a year to register and usually has the option to extend for several years at a cheaper cost.

*someone who buys domain names in bulk in hope of someone wanted a name to pay a high price for it.