Choosing a Domain Name

by: Garland Coulson

Your web site address, or domain name, is an important part of your Internet branding and Internet marketing strategy. But most people give the choice of a domain name little thought, and just register their company name or the closest domain name they can get to their company name.

By doing this, they are missing some great Internet marketing opportunities.

Let’s look at some of the choices you need to make and ways to make your domain name market harder for you.

Company Name vs. What People Search For

Unfortunately, many common product names with the .com extension are already taken. So let’s look at some alternatives.

Geographic Considerations

Are you serving the world, your country, or your local town?

If your customers are country or town specific, you can use your domain name to help you be found easier when customers are looking for local products and services.

The most common domain names are as follows.

• .com - global commercial
• .org – global for organizations
• .net – global for networks
• .biz – global for business

Each country also has it’s own geographic domain name suffix. Here are a few examples:

• Canada - .ca
• United States - .us
• Great Britain - .uk
• Australia - .au
• Germany - .de

So if you are a Canadian company with primarily Canadian clients, it would make sense to register a .ca name so that people know you are Canadian. This will also help you rank higher in the search engines when people are looking for country specific searches. So Susan might want to register giftbaskets.ca instead of giftbaskets.com.

For common names such as gift baskets, you’ll probably find the .com name already gone and even the country name may be gone as well. By using the city, you will improve your ranking when people search for a phrase which includes the city such as “Vancouver gift baskets.” Most people looking for local help will include the local city or town in the search.

Finding an alternate name

You can find out what alternate key words people are looking for in the search engines by using a service such as WordTracker. WordTracker will help you find alternative, high-traffic key words that you can then incorporate into your domain name.

Other considerations

1. Ease of use: Is the domain name short enough to remember or to be given over the phone?

2. Hyphens: Some people register domain names with hyphens in them because the name they wanted is already registered. This can be effective, but too many hyphens make it hard to remember and you run the risk of people just typing in the name without hyphens and being directed to a competitor.

3. Vanity domain names: It might be a good idea to register your own personal name.

Where to register your domain name

At these kinds of costs, you can afford to purchase a number of domain names to ensure they won’t be gone when you are ready to launch additional Internet ventures.

A great domain name could be the start of a great Internet business!