How to select a domain name that attracts traffic to you website
The domain name plays a major role in the success or failure of your online business. A badly selected domain name can not be changed later. Technically it can be, but the vast amount of SEO work you put in is wasted when you do so. So you don’t get a second chance to correct your domain name and therefore you have to be very serious in selecting a domain name. Following tips will help you select the best domain name for your business.
1. Do the keyword research before selecting the domain name
Open your favorite keyword research tool (Google keyword tool is the best free keyword research tool and if you are looking into a premium tool SEO Power Suite is by far the better tool. I use both Google tool and Rank Tracker of SEO Power Suite, but Google keyword tool together with some Excel will give you the same results as Rank Tracker) and get the best keywords for your business. It is recommended to select 3-5 keywords/phrases to target. When you have this list you can pair them to or you can add prefixes or suffixes to them to create your domain name. If your business is to sell something online buy, best, cheap are good prefixes to use, because somebody searching to buy something will definitely use these keywords in their search phrases.
Eg: if you are targeting to sell football boots online CheapFootballBoots will be a good candidate for a domain name.
2. Select a unique domain name
It will be difficult to select a unique domain name with the huge amount of website available, but take your time and try to make your self as unique as you can. Don’t try to alter a name of a popular website by making it plural, adding hyphens, underscores etc, to create your own, hoping that you will receive a part of the traffic of that popular site. It will work the other way around.
3. Always go for the .com domain
Many internet surfers think that .com is the only way that a domain name ends with. There are few who knows what .com, .net, .org, .info ,.gov means but for the majority it is .com and .com only. So go with the majority and name your domain with .com. if you really need a different TLD (Top Level Domain) the next best are .net and .org respectively. Even if you select .net or .org as your domain it is highly recommended that you forward the .com domain too to the primary domain you selected.
Eg: if you select CheapFootballBoots.net as your website you should forward CheapFootballBoots.com also to CheapFootballBoots.net
4. Select an easy to remember and type domain name
The success of a website depends heavily on the percentage of recurrent visitors the site is having. These people normally visit your site by typing the URL. So for them to visit back your site they should be able to easily remember the domain name. Also it should be easy to type.
5. Select a reasonable length to the domain name.
Don’t make the domain name very short or very long. It will be difficult too to find a short domain name which has some relevancy to your website. It is needless to say that a long domain names is difficult to remember and type.
6. Make the domain name relevant to the content of your website.
When somebody sees a URL, they get some idea about the content to be seen in the website. So don’t frustrate them. Always try to provide the information that the URL promise to deliver.
Eg: If the domain name is CheapFootballBoots.com, people expect and it should sell football boots. If you have some information regarding best football players to play the game, you are breaking the rule.
7. Don’t use hyphens, underscores or any other separators.
Always try to avoid these text separators. They will make your site unprofessional and the domain name difficult to remember. When you are out of words to select for your domain or when your keywords are used in other sites try to use synonymous of them to name your site. Search engines love synonymous and they won’t affect your SEO effects, in fact they will improve it.
