Domains are the location to your website. The importance of having a good domain name is similar to having your convenient store on the right side of the block. You know how people they say, “Location, Location, Location” when it comes to a retail business. Similarly, you can say, “Domain Domain Domain” when it comes to a starting a website. Choosing the right domain names can make or break your business; which is why some companies are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars for them or in some cases even millions.

Of course you are probably not prepared to spend that kind of money, but it still a good idea to know what want to look for when it comes to registering your $10 domain name. As a rule of thumb I say there is about 5 major things you could at least consider when choosing the best domain name for your your website.

1.)Generic Top-Level Domains(gTLD)

Ideally, you would want to get an .com considering that it is the most popular one by far. Benefits of having .coms instead of any other gLTD includes:

  • Possibility of type-in traffic due to people who type in what they looking for straight into their broswer instead of using search engines.
  • It is most familiar gTLD, therefore it usually makes it easier to remember
  • Last but not least, it looks more professional than some unknown level domains. Most large companies with plently of resources uses .coms and in contrast there are many scam sites that uses random domain extentions that for the most part no body has heard about.

    • Unfortunately, a lot of people will find that the .com of their desired domain name is already taken. And unless your website is intended to only target audience from a certain region, you will probably want to rule out regional domains(.ca, .cn, .in, …) out of your consideration. In which case, it may be a good idea to consider other of the more universally popular gLTD such as .net or .org. Other alternative options include finding another domain name that is available or purchasing it from the person that is holding the .com.

    2.)Keywords

    You will want to pick keywords that has many searches on search engines and also be well related to the topic of your site. Other things that you will want to consider is the competition of the keyword and how brandable it is. Most of the time, they will these things will conflict each other, so you will have to look at your options and choose accordingly to your site you want to have.

    For Example - Doka.com may be more brandable and easier to remember than canadausedkidbookssale.com, however canadausedkidbookssale.com may have more keywords related to your site if your selling used kid books in Canada.

    3.)Length

    Having lots of well related keywords in your domain is a good thing, but not if your domain ends up being like 20 characters. In general the shorter it is the better, for the primary fact that it will probably be easier to remember.


    4.)Word Relations

    You want to keep in mind the phases or order of words in your domain. Having a descriptive and phase that makes sense will get more hits from search engines and also be easier to remember.


    For Example     - CoolRedCars.com is better that CarRedCool.com.

    5.)Age

    you may want to consider to buy domains from other people who have registered the domain already. Aside from the fact that, good domains may already been taken by domainers; the domain will be older. And on the internet, old is gold. Search engines tend to prefer older domains meaning domains that have been registered and held for a while than domains that are just registered recently.