Avoid Using Doubled Letters
Using doubled letters in a domain name is practically asking for typos. Doubled letters are hard to read and even harder to type correctly.
If mistakes happen often enough, you may end up with someone typosquatting and stealing your traffic. Plus, having to spend even a few seconds longer than necessary trying to figure out how to spell your domain is an unnecessary distraction.
How To Choose A Domain Name For Your Blog
Like finding a domain name for a business, choosing a domain name for your blog has many similar steps. But because businesses can start offline, you might not even have a name chosen for your blog yet!
Luckily, this means you have a better chance of finding a blog name and domain name that are a perfect match, but you’ll need to put in some elbow grease to find something unique. According to Blogging.org, there are more than 500 million blogs on the internet. But don’t be discouraged! Here are some steps to help you find the right domain name for you.
Always Go For The Com
Let me say this again: Wherever possible, always go for a .com domain. Exhibit A: This site.
Technically speaking, the .com is just one of many domain name extensions that are available . Some of the other popular options include, .net, .org, .co, .edu, .biz, or even things such as .shop, or .blog.
And while all those fancy TLDs are tempting, getting the classic .com is nearly always the right thing to do. Two reasons:
What all of this means is that if your perfect .com is taken, then perhaps you should either forget about that name entirely or try contacting the current owner to see if theyre willing to sell the domain to you. Warning! This could be expensive.
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Common Options For Tlds And When To Use Them
There are over 400 different extensions available, so we wont be able to cover them all here, but lets take a look at the most popular options, and when theyre best used as an extension for your domain:
- .com This is the most popular extension and originally stood for commercial sites, but now it is used for all kinds of websites.
- .net Originally intended for networked websites, this domain extension is used for a wide variety of purposes today. This is a good backup if your ideal choice is taken in the .com extension. Its also good for tech companies as net implies technology and networking.
- .org meant for organizations. Best used if your website is for a nonprofit company. Not the ideal solution if youre a business as it sends mixed messages.
- .edu This one isnt typically available for public registration, and is instead used by colleges and educational institutions.
- .info This is best used if your website is purely there for information or as a database of knowledge. If youre not selling anything, then this domain could work well.
- .biz An alternative to .com domains for businesses, but it does have some bad connotations because of spammy sites using it.
- .me This extension is often used for personal websites or blogs that have no commercial intent.
Make Sure Its Easy To Remember
Dont forget that word of mouth and search engine marketing both depend on how easy it is to remember your domain name. You dont want to be that company with the incredible website whose name no one can ever remember when the time comes to tell a friend about it. From an SEO point of view, there are a lot of advantages to following best branding practices. Ignoring them, on the other hand, will jeopardize your long-term results.
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Tips To Choose An Seo
Choosing the right domain name is crucial for your new website. Its the initial step to build a brand online where most beginners fail.
Picking an SEO-friendly domain name is not as easy as it sounds. It takes time and a lot of consideration.
If you pick the wrong domain name, you may end up losing search traffic, revenue, or the worst that can happen, Google will mark your website as spam.
But dont worry. Ive got you covered.
In this article, I will share eight tips that will help you choose an SEO-friendly domain name for your new website.
Dont have a website yet? Read this guide on How to Start a Blog!
Whats Best For Marketing And Seo
Perhaps the best thing about creating a new brand with your domain name, is having an open canvas to shape your identity. On the negative side, potential customers will not automatically connect your products and service offerings with your name.
If you are creating a new word, it may also be challenging for users to remember. Also, many times creating an entirely new brand requires a more sophisticated and costly marketing plan in order to generate exposure and educate potential users. That means you may have to invest much more in search engine optimization , online/digital advertising, or even public relations.
On the flip side, If you have a descriptive domain name, it is likely that your keywords are already incorporated into your sites name. This can be a valuable asset, and provide instant free SEO and digital marketing for your website.
Although this tactic was a more effective way to improve your SEO rankings years ago, it has become increasingly less effective as Googles algorithm can penalize poor quality or less visited sites, even if their domain name exactly match search terms.
This means that you are going to need to do more than keyword stuff your domain name. Additionally descriptive websites may have more competition in search engines for your domain name because of other sites that operate in the same space.
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Act Fast & Register Your Domain
Ok, so by finishing reading this article you probably learned by now a few tips on how to choose a domain name that is good for you and your business. If the domain name is available to be registered, you should act fast and register it quickly before someone else gets the chance to get it before you.
It doesnt happen that often, but trust me sometimes it does.
For instance I had 3 domain name ideas for a blog of mine that I started a while back, out of the 3 domain names, I had 2 that were really good and couldnt decide between them, so I said its best to take some time off, do some other things and then come back and see which one I like the best.
Sure enough, after I went bicycling through the town for a few hours, I found out that the domain that I liked the most has just been registered by someone else.
I was so furious that I decided to register the other 2 domain names and use the one that I liked the most to build my blog and the other one to redirect to it, just in case I couldnt decide between them and risked the chance to get one of them registered by someone else again.
So yeah, if you like a domain more than the others, go ahead and act fast and register it before someone else does.
My favorite domain registrar is NameCheap
The reasons for going with NameCheap are simple, they are cheaper than GoDaddy and other domain name registrars, they are well known and have been in the business since 2001.
Make Sure Its Easy To Type And Memorable
Finding a domain name thats easy to remember is very important to success online.
If you have a complex domain name such as jjkmysitee.com it is very hard for users to type. Its also very hard to remember for them.
Now think, if your users want to revisit your website, your domain name will confuse them, and if they mistype your domain name, they will end up visiting another website. Not to mention, this way you will lose your visitors as well as revenue.
Just think how successful sites or companies choose their domain name. For example, Google, Facebook, BBC, Twitter, Yahoo, etc.
One thing they have in common is that theyre all simple to spell.
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Know Your Target Market
Naming a domain is a walk in the park if you already know your target audience.
If you know who your potential customers are and if you can recognize what they want, youll be better positioned to offer them something that theyll like.
For example, you have decided that you want to promote a fitness class to local residents in Seattle.
So, a suitable new domain name would be the one that describes your location and your business, such as SeattleFitness.com or SeattleWorkout.com.
Better yet, talk to some of your target audience members and really listen to the types of keywords that they use. Then, choose a domain that reflects them.
Avoid Hyphens And Numbers In Your Domain Name
When choosing a domain name for SEO, its always better to avoid hyphens and numbers.
Hyphens and numbers make it harder to pronounce.
Lets take Apple.com as an example.
Apple.com is a very short domain name and is easy to pronounce. More than that Apple.com sounds like a brand.
What if there were any hyphens or numbers in the name like App-le.com or Number1Apple.com, of course, the company could not have spread so promptly if that was the case.
So, if you are finding a domain name for your new website, always keep it simple and avoid hyphens and numbers.
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Check For Availability On Social Media
You should choose a domain name that you can also use everywhere else across the internet, especially all the social media channels.
This will build trust and make it easier to create and grow a real brand around your website and business.
You can use tools like Knowem to check that the name youve chosen isnt already taken as a web domain or across social media platforms.
Short Is Better Than Long
In general, when it comes to the length of your domain, shorter is better.
According to research from DataGenetics.com, a blog by Nick Berry, the most common name length is approximately 12 characters.
All of this data shows that you should keep your domain name concise.
Aim for 6-14 characters and remember the shorter, the better. Most likely the shorter domain names are taken a LONG time ago and sold for thousands of dollars. If you cant find something short, make it brandable.
Our own site websitesetup.org is exactly 12 characters.
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How To Save Your Website Traffic
Its important to change your domain name without losing rankings and organic search traffic. Backlinks to your website are important for SEO, and there are steps to take to help you keep your audience.
Create a sitemap and set up 301 redirects
Sitemaps show the internal structure of a website. They are used to direct search engines on how to navigate the pages on your site. Once you have sitemaps for both your old and new pages, you can compare and organize, so that each old page points to the correct new page, by using 301 redirects. This permanent redirect will send your site visitors to a different URL than the one they entered into the search bar.
This is important for SEO ranking, getting your , and visitor satisfaction. You can find out more on this topic by reading our Knowledgebase article, How to redirect a URL for a domain.
Use the Change of Address Tool
Connect your old and new site names with the Change of Address Tool. It tells Google about your website change, and helps the Google Search results page to understand what you have done.
Check for 404 pages
You may have come across a Page Not Found page. This is an error page where the correct URL path is missing, and therefore you will not be shown the page you intended to visit. Check all old URLs, and if you do have 404 pages, make sure they are redirected to the new 404 page.
Use Your Business Name
Its a good practice to buy your domain name shortly after coming up with a blog or business name, or while deliberating between a few of your favorite ideas.
Why? Because if you decide to first incorporate your business and the matching domain name is already taken, youre SOL.
Or are you? You certainly wouldnt be the first person to come up with a great business name only to be disappointed by the available domain name results.
Here are some ideas for domain name variations that play on your business or blog name:
- Incorporate your name into the business name
- Synonyms of the individual words that make up the business name
- Alliteration to assist in recall
- A different language
- Relevant industry jargon so people can instantly understand theyre in the right place and/or something that describes what you do clearly
- A play on words with a domain extension
- Dashes between your first and last name
- Adding the before your business name
- Incorporate power words and descriptive adjectives
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Stay Unique Specific And On
With all of these things to keep in mind, it can be hard to brainstorm a domain name that is clear and concise while also remaining unique and true to your business.
But it’s certainly doable. Keep your business name and what you sell at the front of your mind, and dig into your niche to make sure your domain name is also attracting the online audience you want.
Use A Domain Name Generator To Browse Your Options
Once you have a few keyword options, its time to brainstorm ideas for your domain name. While you can do this without any special tools, its often difficult because youll keep running into names that are already taken.
Using a domain name generator like Domain Wheel will help simplify the process by both brainstorming for you and making sure that all its suggestions are actually available for purchase:
All you need to do is visit the website and enter a keyword into the search box. To illustrate this, lets imagine that youre starting an advice blog about how to train dogs. For your keyword, youve settled on dog training. Entering that term into the search bar will return these results:
As you can see, there are lots of variations to choose from. If you dont like any of them, you can try a slightly different keyword, or scroll down for random ideas and keyword suggestions. We suggest taking your time and coming up with a few solid options, so you can narrow them down in the next step.
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