Choosing a domain name is one of the most crucial steps in building an online business. Search engines evaluate your domain name in respects to the overall concept or theme of your website. So your ranking can be negatively affected if the name you choose is not closely related to your site's concept or theme.

Following are some tips to help you when researching your initial steps to get a successful site up on the net.

Choosing a domain name really is that important!

If you are just starting out you likely aren't promoting your own product. Most likely you are operating an affiliate program where you promote the products of an affiliate merchant or a network marketing company for a commission.

You may not even have your own website yet. You should know, if no one else is willing to tell you, that having your own website is crucial to generating targeted free search engine traffic. But even if you do not have a website and you will be using other means of driving traffic, a domain name of your own is necessary for marketing an affiliate program or a network marketing program.

Your domain name should be related to the theme of the product or service being marketed. Some brainstorming will be in order here. If you're promoting a lead capture page, then your name should be related to the main theme of that page. Ideally, it will contain a related keyword. If you are promoting your network marketing sales site, it should be related to one of it's products/services. Keyword research will be a valuable tool in choosing your domain name.

Either way, you should not choose your domain name before doing this critical brainstorming. If you are building a website, more research and brainstorming will be in order. Choosing your domain name will not be feasible until you have nailed down your site's concept/theme and developed a master list of related and profitable keywords which will make up the basis for your content.

Before you register your domain name you need to sit down and generate a list of names that you could possibly use for your business.

You can do this one of two ways:

1. Set up your site to sell one specific affiliate product
2. Set up your site to sell multiple affiliate products

In number one, it's pretty simple to come up with a domain name. Let's say you have chosen to promote a product called GoofyWidgets.com. Just come up with variations on that until you find one that is available.

Some examples may be: MyGoofyWidgets.com, TheGoofyWidgets.com, FindAGoofyWidget.com, etc.

Now the second method requires more brainstorming but you get leverage and cost savings.

You don't want to have to purchase a domain name and hosting account for each product so you pick out one domain name and set up sub-directories such as:

www.mywidgets.com/product1

www.mywidgets.com/product2

What you have to do is come up with a descriptive and appealing name but still have it be somewhat generic. Want some powerful tips?

• Register your full name, for example, www.ReggieAuzenne.com.
• Mix in words like 'info', 'marketing', 'tips', 'ebook', 'news', 'secrets' because they imply content.

Well, that's my take on choosing domain names. Just make sure it makes sense. It must be descriptive of what you do.

A word of advice. Domain names are going like wildfire. If you haven't already, you need to choose a domain name! If you procrastinate you may end up with ThisDomainNameSucks.net! You don't have to be a SuperGuru.com or a professional web master. Even if you don't have a web page yet. Get your domain name registered before the name you really want is snapped up.

You could get a lot more involved but since this is geared more for beginners. I'll leave off here and if you would like more info contact me at reggie@synernet.ws or you can get more details at www.net-traffic-pro.com.

I'll be glad to help you with getting yourself set up as an internet marketing professional using attraction based marketing.