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By Daichi Hoang
With over 50 million registered domain names, it’s tough to
find a good done that’s still available. Unfortunately the
domain name industry is full of opportunistic “traders” who
buy
and sell domain names without any intention of even using it
themselves. Because of this, the majority of the registered
domain names don’t even have a website to go with it!
This can be quite frustrating as you seek out a domain name
for
yourself to build a website for. But at the end of the day in
a
first-come first-served world, we must try and find another
way
to find that great domain name.
There are several tools that can be very handy when it comes
to
looking for a domain name. I discuss these tools in another
article. Here we will discuss what makes a good domain name.
To brand or not to brand?
Brading is a key element in traditional “offline” marketing.
Having a unique, catchy name does wonders for any business.
However when it comes to an online presence, you might just be
better off with a domain name that is rich in keywords.
Search engines primarily work on keywords as you may know. You
enter a search term or “keywords” and the search engine
produces results based on their formulas and the websites they
believe to be the best fit for your search.
Now, there are many Search Engine Optimisation techniques that
can be used by anyone on any site. The same techniques could
be
applied to a lot of sites, so my question is what could
possibly
be the 1 thing that is unique and could separate one site from
the other? Of course, domain names!
I prefer to have keywords in the domain names that I own
because this is what could give me the edge over competitors.
Of course it’s not so important if your website is a personal
one and you are not looking to make any money from it. But if
you are selling something or wanting to make money off your
website, I would strongly recommend using keywords in your
domain names. Just to prove it, go to Google.com and search
for
"domain name". You will see in the results that any occurrence
of the words “domain” or “name” is actually in bold. So Google
is definitely looking out for your search terms and
highlighting them for you.
On the other hand, branding is still a strong concept online
as
well. If you find that catchy name (such as....hmmm Google?)
and
market it well, then you could be well on your way to
word-of-mouth fame in no time!
If your business name is available, register it. You can
always
register keyword rich domain names to draw the traffic, and
redirect them to your business name domain.
Hyphens or no hyphens?
Another common topic of discussion is whether to use hyphens
in
your domain names. I own mixtures of both hyphenated and
non-hyphenated names. There is nothing wrong with hyphens. In
fact, for search engines you are helping them by separating
words that could be read differently. Here is one example:
mikesmithstables.com
This domain could belong to a horse trainer “Mike Smith”, as a
website for his racing stables, or it could also be read as
“Mike Smith’s Tables”. So there is definitely nothing wrong
with hyphenation, as it would actually help to distinguish
where the words end in the above example. The only small
problem you will run into is word of mouth advertising where
people will have to call out the hyphens. But believe me, you
want all your traffic to come from search engines because it’s
free and the volumes are enormous.
What about using abbreviations?
If your preferred name was something like flowerstoyou.com but
it was taken, but you see flowers2you.com is available, should
you take it? There are several common abbreviations or
variations of certain words that are almost commonly accepted,
particularly in cyberspace. Thanks also SMS messaging, we are
no used to the use of “2″ instead of “to”, “4″
instead of “for” etc. Whether you choose to use such
variations
in your domain name is totally up 2 u (ok I was trying to be
funny..).
Don’t forget however that word of mouth advertising will
always
require the person making the recommendation to remind people
of
the substitute.
About The Author: www.websiterego.com How to start a
website is a blog written by Daichi Hoang of Flair Pair - A
web
development group. Flair Pair provides affordable web design
www.flairpair.com and affordable web hosting
www.polarishost.com solutions.
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