Is Shop A Good Domain

The Making Of A Good Domain Name

LengthWhen it comes to a domain name, less is more. Shorter names are easier to remember and to type, which means users are more likely to find you. It’s also easier to stand out when there’s less to read. It’s a good idea not to exceed two or three words.

SimplicityYou want people to remember your domain name and type it accurately. Complicated or uncommon words or names may be hard to remember and spell correctly.

KeywordsRelevant words help users find you in a search and recognize what you do at a glance. Keywords can include what you do or offer , or even your location. Including your location in your domain name might also help you target local customers and users.

Brand nameYour domain name should reflect your brand, and vice versa. Brands can take time to develop, and including your unique brand name in your domain can help you stand out, gain recognition and increase visits to your website. When creating your brand name and domain name, just be sure not to use any existing brand names or trademarks.

Website nameWhile it may seem obvious, your domain name should be the same as your brand name, or as close to it as possible. You don’t want to confuse people who type in your domain name and get to a website with a different name.

An average domain name is better than no domain name.

How Common Is Your Business Name

Imagine: A business offers standard products like sewing equipment and materials. The name of the company is something equally familiar like Incredible Sewing.

Because incredible and sewing are two commonly used words, the chances that the appropriate domain is available for a .com domain extension are much less than for .net.

The reason for this is how frequently each domain extension is used. In 2018, upwards of 46% of all registered domains used the .com TLD while only 3.7% used .net. When trying to come up with the perfect web address, sometimes it feels like every one-word or two-word .com domain name is already taken. This is one reason why some individuals and businesses will choose to use a .net extension versus a .com.

N.B.: It is beneficial to check if your desired domain is available before moving forward with a project or company.

Going to great lengths to plan in the beginning will save time and prevent you from having to remake those business cards due to an unavailable domain name! If youre wondering how to search for your domain, check out Domain.com.

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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Help Yourself To Some Domain Name Generators

This is another kind of helper that you can use if youre finding it hard to come up with a cool domain name, and thus, by extension, your business name as well.

These tools are very simple to use, but also surprisingly helpful. All they need is one keyword from you a seed keyword and, in return, they give you tens or even hundreds of suggestions, full of valid and available domain names that you can register right away.

The best such tools include:

• LeanDomainSearch, created by the guys at Automattic . For example, this is what you get when looking up coffee:

• Business name generator by Shopify works similarly to the above, and also helps you build a Shopify store with the domain name of your choice.
• Nameboy is a bit more old-school especially in its design but its still useful. This one needs more specific input, and does a better job once you have a general direction you want to follow with your name.

Best Practices For Buying A Good Domain Name

Some brands choose to add keywords in their domain name to help it rank better in search. You can create a brand name with a keyword in it like the brand EraseCosmetics.com. Adding keywords to your domain name allows people to immediately know what you sell on your store. This works best for niche stores. If you choose a domain name with a keyword in it, make sure the keyword is popular.

For example, a store name with the keywords cycling shorts is restricting. However, having the cycling keyword allows you to sell more products within that niche. However, the downside to having keywords in your domain is that it can restrict what you sell over the long term.

For example, if Amazons website was called AmazonBooks.com, theyd eventually have to change their domain name as they began to expand their product collections. Having keywords in their domain name wouldve made it more challenging to grow their brand to include other products.

If you heard a domain name from a friend or on the radio, would you know how to spell it? Some words can sound the same but are spelled differently like read and red or feat and feet or pair and pear. Avoid using homonyms in your domain name as it can lead to incorrect spellings of your domain.

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The Top Creative Shop Names Right Now

We listed actionable steps to help you create interesting shop names. But coming up with creative names is hard. Thats why well list a few very creative names of real shops to inspire you and give you direction when creating your own company name.

Groupon

The website that helps people save money on purchases with collective shopping was created as a blend of words group and coupon. These two words accurately describe what the shop does but use a unique word that sounds hip and creative.

Upwork

The largest freelancing website in the world is basically a shop where you can purchase creative talents. The name was created as a response to the word work itself, which can sometimes sound like a downer. The name indicates that the platform offers different kinds of work. This matches their brand value.

Alibaba

One of the largest e-commerce businesses in the world was named by the founder Jack Ma. He asked a random waitress in San Francisco if she knows about Ali Baba, the mythical figure. And she knew about the open sesame story. He then asked more random people and everyone knew who Ali Baba was. This is when he knew he hit the right metaphor.

Etsy

Etsy is an online marketplace where crafters and artists make their income. You can buy handmade and vintage items in the shop. The true origin of the word Etsy is a mystery known only to the founders. They even encourage their employees to make up a story if someone asks them where the name Etsy comes from.

Zappos

Use A Domain Name Generator For Inspiration

Feeling stuck on choosing a domain name? You can pull ideas from Shopifys free domain name generator. Load the tool, plug in a keyword, and well return popular and alternative domain names you can use for your business.

Sneak peek: Say you want to sell hats, here are a few options available right now:

Not the right domain name for you? The domain name generator also shows alternative options.

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Picking A Domain Name: Keep It Short

Think about how you will want to market your website in the future. Choosing a domain name on which you build a business is a long-term investment. Think about how you might use this domain name months or even years from now. In looking at many of the big name brands, youll find that the shorter your name, the better. The shorter your name, the more memorable. The shorter your name, the less it costs to print it on material. There are a lot of benefits to a short name, some difficult to even predict.

How do you whittle down the character count, then, especially if your brand name is something like The Best Bunches of Botanicals? You remove all unnecessary verbiage. For the most part, this includes words like the and my. Ideally, youd produce a site domain like this: www.bunchesofbotanicals.com. You domain name can be up to 67 characters. Try to keep it below 20.

Note: Many stores also buy common extensions of their domain to protect the brand, including the .net, .biz and .co versions of their .com domain. Also, think through potential misspellings and buy those domains, too. You can then redirect those links to your homepage. This is especially recommended if you brand has an uncommon spelling.

People Take These Domain Names Seriously

A fabulous example of how serious .STORE domains are was highlighted by www.magazine.store. The value of this deal sits at a whopping $200,000! Plus, Magazine.store is also used by the Meredith Corporation. This is the media house that owns some of the biggest magazines such as Better Homes & Gardens- how awesome is that?!

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What Is The Purpose Of The Website

Are you selling a product? Are you offering information? Are you trying to save a species of animal?

These are important questions because they strike at the heart of your business and determine which domain extension is appropriate. Here is a breakdown of the most common domain extensions:

• .com Usually offers a product or service. Com is short for Commercial. Commercial businesses, for-profit companies, personal blogs, and non-personal blogs are all standard for owning a .com domain. That being said, because of its generality, almost any website is acceptable as a .com.
• .net Stands for Network, and is generally associated with umbrella sites sites that are home to a wide range of smaller websites. Network sites were initially created for services like internet providers, emailing services, and internet infrastructure.

If your desired .com domain name is taken then consider using a .net. Other commonly used domain extensions have a more specific purpose:

S To Picking The Perfect Domain Name For Your Retail Business

Did you know that there are over 1 billion live websites on the Internet? This means that when it comes to choosing a domain name for your retail business, you need to find something that is not already in use. Is that a creative challenge? Yes, absolutely. Is there a creative solution to this? Yes, for sure!

A few years ago, it might have been difficult to find a domain name that they like, but not anymore. Today, there are 1200+ new domain extensions to find your domain name on which opens up a huge opportunity for businesses to choose the domain name they desire without having to compromise.

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Keep It Short Meaningful & Relevant

With so many .STORE domain names still available, coming up with a good name is easy. Keep it short, meaningful, and relevant to draw the maximum traffic. We recommend:

• Being descriptive. Make sure its clear from the name alone what your store is about.
• Avoiding dashes or numbers. These things are hard to type, say, and remember.
• Avoiding copyrighted terms. Using copyrighted or trademarked terms can get you in trouble.

Ready To Register Your Domain Name

Buy your .shop domain today.

Dont have a website yet? Our Ecommerce Website Builder makes it super simple to get your retail business online with an intuitive editor that means you dont need any dev skills to create your online store you can have a website in just a few clicks.

If you need any help deciding which products are right for you, or you have questions about your existing Fasthosts products, our sales and support teams are always here to lend a hand.

Want more info and top tips about domains and more? Check out the rest of our blog where we have tons of articles about everything from servers and infrastructure to email, domains and WordPress!

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Sometimes Dont Go For The Com

Sorry. I know Im making things confusing, but please bear with me.

There are some exceptions to the .com rule:

Chiefly, if your website is meant to cater to a local audience, consider going for a local TLD. For example, building a blog for the German market? How about getting a .de address?

Doing this will give your users that little bit of additional awareness and boost your trustworthiness by making it clear youre in their country .

But even with that, you shouldnt limit yourself to just that local domain name. You may still want to expand your brand in the future, and, if that happens, you dont want to find out that someone has already taken your .com.

So, at the end of the day, even if you want to cater to a local market, you can still benefit in the long run by getting the .com version as well. And, in the meantime, you can link the .com to your local domain, so, no matter which address someone visits, they still end up at the same website.

How Many Domains Should I Register

Its often a good idea to purchase a few extra domains, such as:

• Common misspellingsIf your name is hard to spell, consider buying common misspellings of your name.
• With and without an sSometimes its hard to hear an s at the end of name, so you might want to get your name with and without the s. For example, victoriassecret.com and victoriasecret.com take you to the same site.
• Additional extensionsConsider purchasing your domain name with additional extensions, especially if your domain is not a .com. Also, as we discussed, you may want to secure your domain with one of the new extensions for use in the future.

Try not to go overboard! The registrar may try to get you to buy every possible extension and every variation of your domain. Just get the ones the make sense.

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Does A Shop Domain Rank Well On Google

There are misconceptions if google treats the same every top-level domain but it is clear that they dont have a preference .

Back in 2015, they clearly answered that they treat all generic top-level domains the same:

Q: How will new gTLDs affect search? Is Google changing the search algorithm to favor these TLDs? How important are they really in search?

A: Overall, our systems treat new gTLDs like other gTLDs . Keywords in a TLD do not give any advantage or disadvantage in search.

Saying that one of the main factors that google ranks websites is based on user behavior and user experience. If the user searches for the term I want to buy clothes and he sees clothes.shop and clothes.com on the google results probably he would click on clothes.com. It seems more legit in his eyes compared to the .shop version.

The amount of clicks a site gets compared with the times was appeared on search results is called click-through rate. This is a significant factor for google rankings.

So even if Google treats the 2 extensions the same, in my opinion, .com has an indirect advantage due to trust .

Something similar happens when you run an advertising campaign on social media or search engines. People are already avoiding to click on ads so they will be even more unwilled to click an ad that leads to a new extension such as .shop.

Where Can I Buy A Shop Domain

*Please check also the links for any updates in prices: Namecheap Pricing , Dynadot Pricing , Namesilo Pricing, Godaddy Pricing. In addition to the previous prices, you need to pay a small fee for ICANN and maybe a sales tax based on your location. The Domain registrars always offer coupons and discounts for the first year registration or for a domain transfer. They always increase the prices after the initial term.

Final Words

I hope the post helped you to decide if it is wise to register a .shop domain or not.Dont forget to share the post on social media if you really like it!

**The post contains affiliate links but all the conclusions are unbiased.

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Shop Around To Find The Best Price

Even though all domain registrars offer the same product they register a domain name on your behalf the pricing can sometimes be very different. For that reason, its always a good idea to shop around with different registrars and compare the prices of the domain name you want to get.

Just to give you an example, if youre after a .co domain extension a fairly popular choice these days youll find out that the same domain will cost you:

• $11.99 at GoDaddy
• $6.88 at Namecheap
• $32.50 at ENOM, and so on.

Now, Im not saying that Namecheap is always the cheapest, because its not. The price always depends on the specific TLD you want to get, so always go to multiple registrars and see whats up.

Also, just a general note: Always keep your login credentials to the registrars user panel very secure. If anyone gets access to that panel, theyll be able to transfer your domain to their account .

Which brings me to: