How To Select A Domain Name

Selecting the right domain name for your website is one of the most important steps you will take when starting your own business.

What’s in a name? – Simply EVERYTHING!

Your domain name will tell people what you have to offer and will help them decide if they are interested in looking further. There are several ways you can select your domain name to bring in your customers.

So think about what it is your business offers. Try to select a domain name that reflects your product or service.

If you are just starting out with your first website it can feel a tad bit overwhelming trying to find your perfect domain name. You thought you had it – the perfect name – and then dag blast it, you found out someone else already snatched it up. Oh you may be able to buy it – for an arm and a leg as well as a few other, un-named body parts. Don’t despair, there are ways around that.

Try a hyphenated name. There’s nothing wrong with having a little “dash” in your domain name. As a matter of fact many times a hyphenated name is easier to read. Case in point, www.automaticsponsoring.com vs.
www.automatic-sponsoring.com .

Most of the domain registration sites offer name selection tools to attract business. Here are a few:

NameBoy (www.nameboy.com) has been around awhile and is one of the best. You enter a first and a second choice word to work with, plug in the type of site you have, and whether or not you want to use the hyphenation and rhyming features, then presto! It generates a list of possible names.

MakeWords.com (www.makewords.com) lets you select the language and the length of a possible domain name, plus prefix and suffix. Then it generates possible matches and lets you know if they are available.

DomainFellow.com (www.domainfellow.com) You start with a keyword and Domain Fellow adds up to 1,000 popular prefixes or suffixes to that word. For each combination you can see which domains are available and which have already been taken.

DomainNameSoup.com (www.domainnamesoup.com) Here you can mix and match words with domain names. These tools allow you to experiment with various combinations of hyphens, appending and pre-pending words, changing letters of a domain name and searching for typos. You can also try multiple choices, look for synonyms or juggling word combinations, etc. For the results they'll tell you what's available and what's not.

But take note! The above services don't necessarily have the lowest cost or best domain registrar services. I recommend GoDaddy or CheapNames.com these are the ones I currently use.

Now you may ask, “What type of extension should I get?” Well, here’s a fact; people are going to remember your website as a .com whether it is or whether it isn’t. So if you place an ad with something like www.Cakes-R-Us.net and they go to find you online, they will most likely type in www.Cakes-R-Us.com . You will have lost your potential customer to the.com address.

Specifically for the reason stated above for all your offline advertising you should always use your .com name.

Here’s something else you should do. If they are available you should pick up the other extensions .net, .biz and .info. With these other extensions you will be able to track your online, clickable advertising. By using a different extension with your advertising you will be able to see which ads are generating the most hits.

You will also use the different extensions to send people to different areas of your website. Logically, www.Cakes-R-Us.info domain is forwarded to the information pages about your business. www.Cakes-R-Us.biz can take prospects to your business opportunity page and so on.

Hope this information has been helpful.

If you enjoyed our little chat please stop by and see us again.

Until then,

See you at the top
Dave Carter