Important Factors When Choosing a Domain Name

Choosing the best possible domain name for your online business is essential to succession in the online world. There are many factors you should take into consideration when trying to get the best possible domain. Your domain name will be how your customers/visitors know, and remember, your website. The most important factors to getting the best domain name for your online business are listed in order of importance:

Pronounceable & Easy To Remember
There is nothing worse that when you are trying to find a website you have recently visited, and you can not even remember the domain name of the website. The single and most important factor to take into consideration when selecting your domain is to make sure it is pronounceable so it is easier to remember. If your domain name is easy to remember, and can be spoken with ease, then it is much more likely that your visitors will return to your website. When trying to think of possible domains, it's a good idea to say your suggestion over and over to yourself several times to see if it sounds good, and if it would be easy to remember.

Brandable
Although having a domain name which is made up of dictionary word is good, it's not always the best domain for a brand. For example, a name like 'Toys.com' may be an amazing domain, however it would be extremely difficult to brand the name 'toys'. A good brandable domain name is made up from possibly 'twisted' dictionary words, or even completely made up words. As long as the 'made up' word sounds good, and agrees with the point I have made above, then it could possibly be a really good domain name. Look at Google.com, Yahoo.com, and Bing.com for an example; none of those are words. However nearly everyone on this earth recognizes and remembers these names. Selecting a domain which is easily brandable is essential in most cases.

Domain Extension
The domain name extension is another very important factor to take into consideration when picking the best domain for your online business. When selecting a domain name, it's never a good idea to select a domain extension simply because the other (better) extensions were already taken. Dot com domain is the best possible extension available at this period of time however dot net, and dot org domains are not too far behind dot come. The only reason you should choose another domain extension for your online business is if it makes sense for your business, is your targeted audiences country extension (eg,.co.uk,.us) or some other reason. For example del.icio.us uses the dot us extension not because it's the only domain that was available, or not even because it's targeted audience is in the US, it uses that domain extension because it makes sense for the business name. The dot us finishes the word 'Delicious'. This is possibly not the most important factor to take into consideration, however it's most certainly one to have a serious think about when trying to get the best domain name for your business.

Keywords in Domain Name
Having targeted and related keywords in your domain is a good idea not only for your customers/visitors benefit, but also for your websites SEO benefits. When keywords are in your websites domain name, your visitors will know straight away what your website is briefly about, and what to expect from it. You may think this disagrees with one of the earlier points I've made about your domain being brandable, however it is still possible to create a brandable name and include keywords at the same time. Furthermore, having keywords within your domain helps search engines distinguish your domain main target niche from another and ultimately giving your domain a better chance at competing for the keyword against other websites.

Easy To Spell
This may not seem like a major factor, however you would be surprised at how many visitors a website can lose simply because a person cannot spell the domain name. You have to take into consideration that most of the time if someone fails to get to your website after misspelling your domain several times, they will simply forget about your website, and continue doing something else. Try not to include long, and easily prone to spelling mistakes words within your domain. Not all users take advantage of the 'Did you mean...' feature that search engines offer unfortunately.

You must always remember that your domain is your impression to your visitors or customers. Never underestimate your websites domain name, or think that it wont matter towards this future of your website.

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