Choosing An Effective Domain Name

Selecting THE PERFECT name for your online business can often be a daunting task, especially if THE PERFECT domain name is already taken.

So here are some things to consider in selecting your domain.

Keywords

Our natural inclination is often to use our name as the URL; janesmith.com, joeshmoe.org. And in some instances that makes sense.

If you run a business that is well known already, a domain name that matches your business name will be where your current customers will look for you.

But what about customers who don’t know you – yet?

Using keywords, words that are relevant to who you are and what you do, will help boost you in search results. Let’s take a photographer as an example. Often these types of businesses are set up using the person’s name since they are their business. But JaneExample.com isn’t going to tell search engines anything about the site. JaneExamplePhotography.com will.

It’s perhaps the easiest way to build SEO (Search Engine Optimization) into your new website.

Dot What?

Well what if your ideal URL has been taken for .com, but .biz is available. It may be tempting to snatch up an alternate extension so you can use your preferred URL. However, most people still view the web through .com glasses and are not accustomed to .biz or .info or .bz or other such extensions. So whatever benefit you get by selecting a memorable, keyword rich URL you lose by confusing people with an unusual extension.

That being said, its not a bad idea to buy your domain name with alternate extensions to protect your brand.

Boosting Your Existing URL

Perhaps however, you have an established website that either doesn’t contain any keywords or uses and obscure extension. What then?
Well, you might consider purchasing additional domains that do contain your keyword(s) and a more established extension (.com, .org, .net) and setting up a 301 redirect. This will send anyone looking at KeywordRich.com directly to NoKeyword.biz automatically.

And it prevents your competitors from buying this URL to catch any of your misdirected traffic.