GETTING A DOMAIN NAME WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
A domain name is a very important part of your online business. It is the name by which people will know you and it is normally shown in the Google search results. People will presume certain things about your business online by the name that you choose. Finding a domain name that fits your brand and your blog can be extremely frustrating in this day and age. There are many domain names registered, which means...many of the word combinations that you will come up with are likely already taken. If your preferred domain name is indeed taken, you're going to have to get very creative to come up with a new one. Whether you want to build a blog / forum or e-commerce website, there are several things you should remember when going through the process of picking the right domain name.
RELEVANT AND BASED ON KEYWORD:-
Just about everyone is looking to rank well in Google to help all those people searching for exactly what your blog provides. If you've got a funny blog name but it has no bearing on your actual content, then your URL is not going to be the first few options a searcher sees when they're looking for what you've got. You don't have to make it boring as hell just so it ranks well, you just need to be able to strike that balance between cute and useful.For many, their URL is going to be dependent upon their blog or business name, and if your blog content isn't easily identifiable from the name, then it's going to be that much harder for your blog to show up in search results. Not impossible because with consistent posting and hard work to get yourself out there and linked to, you can begin to build credibility but just that little bit harder without the natural traffic that you could be getting. The domain name can have keywords and branded elements in it. But, if you are buying a domain name to redirect to your main or micro website, in most cases chances are that you will buy a keyword-based domain name so you can easily drive keyword related traffic to the main or micro website. For example, if you're a glass replacement business, you may want to register GlassRepair.com or GlassReplacement.com. It helps improve your rank on search engines (which increases traffic) and just makes more sense to your customers.
APPROPRIATE DOMAIN NAME EXTENSIONS:-
Back in the day there were a handful of choices .com, .net, .org, etc, and a lot of them had extra extensions depending on what country you were in. While it's still sensible to stick to what works, there are also other options to consider, especially if they work particularly well with your business name or genre. Fortunately domain names are much cheaper than they used to be, but some Top Level Domains (TLDs) are dearer than others e.g. .au (Australia) domain names are around 3 times the price of .com names. Certain TLDs have specific eligibility rules as to which individuals or businesses can register their names so you may need to check the rules before choosing your domain name. For example with the .au domain name space, you normally require an ABN or ACN to register a .com, .au name.There are several factors to consider when choosing your domain name, including:
.com-
Primarily commercial enterprises, but open to anyone
.org
Non-profit organizations
.net
Originally for Internet service providers
.info
Informational sites.
.mobi
Websites that are meant to be viewed on mobile devices like cell phones or BlackBerry
Newer ones include .biz, .info, .me and .shop all sorts of things (for list visit here) that might describe your work more accurately. The .com name is still the most recognizable and popular extension, so choose a .com name whenever possible.
MAKE IT UNIQUE, SHORT, EASY TO TYPE & EASY TO REMEMBER
Avoid using slang language or short-codes. Don't be super trendy. Your trendy domain name might sound cool today; but chances are it won't sound so great in a few years. Flickr.com is best example who eventually bought flicker.com too.Avoid tricky spellings, clever spellings won't serve you well when it comes to domain names, try to keep it clear and easy to remember.
Not too long, long domains are hard to remember and a pain to type out, so try to keep it below 20 characters.
Avoid hyphens and numbers unless you have a number in your brand name and hyphens are often used on spammy websites and may lower your credibility.
Think local if you're setting up a website for a business serving a specific location, it might not be a bad idea to incorporate the location into your domain name.
COPYRIGHT AND TRADEMARK CHECK
Obviously its going to cost you a lot of time, money, and heartache if you're sued for infringement because you've started trading as a company with the same name as, or can easily be confused with another company. To a lesser extent you might just piss another blogger off who has worked hard to establish themselves, and are now losing traffic to you.Copyright is difficult to control on the World Wide Web, but there are avenues for people to take if their intellectual property including blog names and URLs has been compromised. There may be people out there with the same blog name as the one you want, but they haven't bought the official domain or their blogs are left stagnant. If you're not entirely confident it's available for you to use. It will be obvious what you can't have, as someone else will be currently using it but you need to do your homework to avoid future legal battles and one hell of a headache. So it's always recommended to check for existing Trademarks before choosing a domain name. You can check for trademark availability at the United States Patent and Trademark Office located at USPTO.gov
ALWAYS HAVE A COUPLE OF BACKUPS:-
When you start to register your domain name it would be wise to have a few different names written down just in-case your first choice is already taken. A lot of times they usually are, so the more unique your domain name is the better chance you will have.REGISTRATION:-
Getting a domain name involves registering the name you want with an organization called ICANN through a domain name registrar. For example, if you choose a name like "example.com", you will have to go to a registrar, pay a registration fee that costs around US$10 to US$35 for that name. That will give you the right to the name for a year, and you will have to renew it annually for (usually) the same amount per annum. Some web hosts will register it and pay for the name for free (usually only the commercial web hosts), while others will do it for you but you'll have to foot the registrar fees.Before registration you will need to gather few tools:
To check the availability of each domain name, you need a domain registrar like NameCheap.com ) to use.
Use Thesaurus.com to quickly check for synonyms if a first choice is currently unavailable.
Using NameStation.com to quickly brainstorm unique combinations of words that can easily yield a compound domain name that has great staying power. This tool is not mandatory; it will only help you to speed up the process. This tool allows you to create some unique word combinations that you might not even have considered, most of which contain relevant keywords and surprisingly are still available as a .com extension.
