9 Tips for choosing the best domain name:
1. Short and Catchy
Having a short domain name is really helpful as it would be easy to spell and type. So, limit your domain name to maximum of 10 – 12 characters. Famous brand like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter are all short yet catchy. It’s great when name is less than 6 characters. Make it sound like a premium brand and a memorable one.
2. Avoid Keyword Stuffing
Choose a domain name based on your business.
E.g. Webdesigner.cheap has the keyword “web design” telling people that this website is all about web design services.
Such inclusions helps a lot in SEO process. Search Engines crawl yours better than your peers.
The keyword should only be a part of your Domain Name and not be stuffed.
E.g. www.bestwebdesigncompany.com, www.bestwebdevelopmentservices.com
Here keyword “best web design company” is being stuffed which is obviously a bad practice.
3. No non-alphabets
Usage of numbers & other characters like hyphen ( – ), and(&) ,underscore ( _ ) should be avoided. These could mislead your visitors if mistyped.
Better frame your Domain Name by only using alphabets. Also avoid misspelling.
E.g. “u” for “you”, “4” for “for”. This misleads your visitors.
4. Make a list
When you start naming do not check for Domain Name and purchase in the first go. Make a list. You may get better ideas when you think for longer time. There are some tools to generate Domain Names. You can use these tools and get more combination & new ideas.
Wordoid, Lean Domain Search and DomainHole are few tools. Be creative and think out of the box. You can even look for similar terms using thesaurus or even translate from different language.
E.g. www.dezvolta.com is a website design agency.
“Dezvolta” is a Romanian word for “develop”. It means the business and also unique from its peers.
5. Availability Check
Once you make a list, check for its availability. There is less chance for short & easy domains. Even if your Domain Name is available, you need to confirm its space in social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.
You can use tool like “knowem” to check social media account availability.
6. Extension Research
.com is the most famous of all extensions. You can choose your extension based on your purpose.
E.g.
1) .com stands for commercial
2) .in for india – Location based
3) .ca for canada – Location based
4) .sg for singapore – Location based
5) .org for Non-profit
6) .net, info for information site
7) .me for personal blog / portfolio
8) .pro for professionals
Recently many extensions like “ .site, .best “ are coming up.
E.g. www.webdesigner.cheap where “cheap” extension clearly conveys that they offer Affordable web design services. Likewise, your extension conveys the type of the website.
7. Legality Check
It is the most important part in Domain Name. Check if the name chosen has been penalised by the search engine “Google”. There are possibilities for Domain Names to be penalised by Google for malpractice by spammers and once you buy it is really going to trouble you. You can confirm it using site:operator. And wayBack Machine helps you to find out what was the Domain Name previously used for. Whois.com is another such site gives you the information about the owners etc.
Next important check is the TradeMark. Find out whether anyone has got the TM for your name. If so, it would create legal issues when used.
8. Domain Acquisition
Look for the names that was once used and is down now. You have added advantages on doing this. The Domain Name having good number of backlinks and domain rating (DR) is likely preferred for acquisition. You can easily redirect it to your current site. This increases your backlinks and DR.
9. Buy Relevant Domains
It is advisable to buy the other extensions of your Domain Name as well. As Domain Names are sold really fast, there is a chance for your competitor to acquire your Domain Name with different extension and act faster than you, messing up your situation. Moreover, buying misspelt version also helps your visitors redirected to your site avoiding distractions.
Hope you enjoyed the 9 quality tips to choose a great domain name for your business.