When starting a new website, one of the first decisions you need to make is what domain name to use. Following these tips will help ensure that the name you choose for your site is available and meets Google’s guidelines. Being sure that others can find your content easily on search engines is important for optimizing your site for SEO (search engine optimization).
1) Check availability
The first thing to do when choosing a domain name for your website is checks if it’s available! You may want something like www.mygreatsite.com, but unless you will quick enough to find that it already takes, you may need to go with www.mygreatsite.net instead (it’s commonly considered best practice for SEO purposes to use the .com extension when possible).
2) Don’t include misspellings or alternative spellings.
If you want people to find your site when they search, make sure there are no other ways of spelling the domain name! For example, if you choose “flavorful” as your site’s title, make sure “flavorful” isn’t available too (this is good advice even if you don’t think anyone will ever try to search for your website in this way!). The same goes for things like www.mygreatwebsite.com, which is another common mistake.
3) Avoid symbols and numbers.
Even if you’re not worried about people misspelling your site’s name, including symbols or numbers in your domain makes it much less likely that your site will rank well with search engines for relevant keywords (since They can’t search for them). So instead of www. my great site. Tv, try something more straightforward like www.mygreatsite.com. If you do want to use a symbol or number, make sure it doesn’t prevent your site from getting indexed by Google (for example, don’t use the numeral “1” since most computers automatically read this as the letter “l”).
4) Make it easy to type
This tip may seem obvious, but you will surprises how often it will overlook! A common mistake is to include a long, hard-to-type domain name, even if the rest of your site’s name will spell easily. For example, www.great-shoes-online.com might have been an awesome choice for your shoe store, but you probably don’t want someone accidentally getting taken to www.ghreat-.com instead (and then promptly leaving since their search was not what they were looking for).
5) Make your domain name easy to remember.
If your website isn’t memorable, people are less likely to remember it or tell others about it. Some great examples of memorable domain names, for this reason, are things like “Whats myip.org” or “Allrecipes.com.” A little creativity can go a long way here and help make your site more memorable.
6) Make it match your brand.
While you might think that www.mygreatwebsite.com is an ideal domain name, there’s a chance that people will already associate “my great website” with another brand in their mind (and if they do, try to visit the site, they’re likely will disappoint in what they find). So before choosing a domain name, carefully consider how closely it matches your site’s overall branding strategy and tone of voice (both in terms of design and content).
7) Avoid trademarked names
Make sure your site’s name isn’t infringing on anyone else’s trademarks. Even if you will not worry about it use, people are less likely to remember or tell others about a domain that sounds like it belongs to another company (or could belong to them). For example, you probably don’t want to use www.facebooknames.com for your new website focused on social media (although it could be an awesome choice for a site selling domain names. just saying!)
8) Don’t use special characters or numbers.
Even though it will common practice to omit the letter “o” when including an extension like “.net” (ex: www.mygreatsite.net), domains with other symbols like “$” or “#” will not index very well by Google and other search engines (so this will hurt your site’s rankings). You should also avoid using numbers at the end of your domain name (like in the examples above) since most computers read these as a letter instead.
9) Don’t use possessive forms.
If you want an easy way to avoid this trap, stick with one-word domains. It’s best to avoid things like www.thecheaptees.com and stick with something straightforward like www.cheapteesonline.com or www.mygreatwebsite.net.
10) Make sure your site loads quickly!
Nothing will drive away customers faster than clicking on your website. And having to wait forever for it to load (or trying to return later and finding that the site is no longer online). While there are other things you could worry about, this one should top your list of priorities!
Conclusion:
Choosing a domain name for your new website can be very tricky. By carefully following these tips, you’ll make sure that your product has the best possible chance of succeeding!
Author Bio:
Sarah has been writing for a decade and now for the Learn Quran online Website. She obtained her Master’s degree at the University of London. Her main objective is to write insightful content for those who read and like it.
