Top 10 Domain Name Tips
By admin • Aug 9th, 2008 • Category: SEO GuidesOne of the earliest steps, when deciding to launch an online business (or an online presence for existing business), is to find a Domain name.
For existing businesses, the domain name process may be straight forward! So if you are Widgets Unlimited, then the choice should be WidgetsUnlimited.com! Of course, the domain name may not be available: assuming you do not want to resort to the law, you will need to choose a different domain name! So, for example, the AA (Automobile Association) chose theAA.com.
New companies have to make a stark choice - do you go for the “keyword” approach or “catchy name” such as Google, Amazon, etc.? Well catchy name is fine if you have a big marketing budget to establish the brand name. In most cases, budget will be the overriding factor. So in many cases opt for the keyword rich approach.
One of our clients wanted to launch a Chateau Real Estate site - so after some initial research, SeoAdviser found that ChateauxProperty.com was available. One HUGE tip, keyword-rich names do help to get top rankings in Google. Within 10 days of launch ChateauxProperty.com was on page #1 of Google for “chateaux property”. See our Case Studies.
Our Top 10 Domain Name Tips
1. Choose a keyword rich domain name.
2. Buy an existing / expiring / expired domain name. The older, the better! Google ranks old domains higher. Use Checkpageranking.com to check the domain - including a false page rank.
3. Choose a TLD (top level domain name) - namely: .com or .net or .org or .info The country specific TLD is also good - so for United Kingdom: .co.uk
4. Check to see if all the TLDs are available for purchase. The extra cost will prevent issues further down the road.
5. Purchase the main Domain name for 10 years - Google likes to see commitment!
6. Short and memorable is better for return visitors: easier to remember. If you can include something that promotes an action. So for example, if you are promoting digital cameras - which of the following would you click in a search result (if you were looking to buy a camera): DigitalCameraReview.com or PetesBigShop.com? Yeah, the “review” domain name would pull you in.
7. Choose a domain name ideally with no hyphens - so chateauxproperty.com is better than chateaux-property.com. If there is no suitable alternative, choose a domain name with NO more than one hyphen. It will look spammy and there is evidence that Google is penalising NEW sites with lots of hyphens.
8. Do not choose an existing Brand / Trademarked name - you will not win!
9. You can only use letters, numbers and hyphens. No spaces! We think numbers are spammy - so 1key.com or key1.com are not good choices.
10. Use one registrar for purchasing / parking your domain names. It is much easier when you have to update contact information, re-new domains, etc. Use a trusted provider such as godaddy.com or 123-reg.com. Keep your contact information up to date on the Registrar site especially the contact email address. Who wants to lose a valuable domain because you never received the renewal information?
Local Markets
If you are marketing a product or service to a specific country and you want to attain top search engine rankings, then choose a domain TLD for that country - so if the UK is your market use .co.uk domain names or if Germany is your target market, then use .de domains. We would also recommend hosting your server in the target country as well.
If you need further help, please contact SeoAdvisor
Useful Links:
- New York lawyer ad rules — “retention” and more - Hanno Kaiser at Antitrust Review reported on Jan. 4th that the new advertising rules for New York lawyers have been finalized by the State’s judicial governing body, and will be effective on Feb. 1, 2007. …
- California State Library changing Internet Service Provider - All of CSL’s domain names, such as www.library.ca.gov, will remain unchanged. See updated connection specifications if your library catalog connects to ours via Z39.50 using an IP address.
- Premium Domain Names Including Love.Me and MovieRentals.com To Be … - Nearly 168 million registered domain names are effectively out of circulation, leaving few descriptive or memorable names available for businesses to use to launch a new product or service, or to drive traffic to an existing product or …
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admin is Howard Farmer - over 20 years of IT experience with IBM, Lotus, GE and Ameridata.
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