Choosing Domain Names
There are a few questions you should ask yourself when trying to choose a domain name:
Should you pick a domain name that will attract search engines or one that will attract humans?
It gets harder every day to find a good domain name and in the near future it will be, well, harder. Finding a good domain name that can attract search engines as well as humans is difficult. If you have deep pockets you can go for the branding aspect and attracting repeat visitors with a .com, .org, or .biz that is short and easy to remember. Some well known domain names such as monster.com don't mean very much, but they are very easy to recall.
Generic domain names such as business.com can't be trademarked, so if you are thinking in terms of trademarking your domain, it is probably best to avoid generic names. Unique names are much easier to trademark.
If you have an existing online business for which you are building a web site, you'll want to register the actual business name as the primary web address. You can register additional keyword rich domain names and simply point them to the primary domain to help pick up some of the type-in traffic. If your business domain name is already taken, you should make an effort to buy it, but beware that reselling domain names is big business and it will likely cost you a lot of money. You might also want to consider changing your business name to one for which you can get a matching domain name.
Should you pick catchy domain names?
Catchy domain names such as amazon.com don't mean much to search engines, so if possible choose a domain that will make it easier to pick up free search engine traffic by avoiding catchy domain names. Some people insist that the domain name is not relevant to search engines but it has been my experience that it is. Try a keyword search on Google and you'll see that the keyword is bold when it occurs in the domain name, folder name or file name. I doubt that it would be bold if there wasn't any relevance involved.
Should you pick names with hyphens or without?
Hyphens are used by some search engines as separators and as such it is easier to pick out the keywords, but hyphens have historically given people a lot of problems when trying to remember domain names. You should get both the hyphenated and non-hyphenated version of a domain name (use the batch domain name search tool to help). If you want the hyphenated version as your primary domain name, simply point the non-hyphenated version to your primary domain name. For instance, if you were registering BestShoeStore.com, be sure to also get Best-ShoeStore.com and Best-Shoe-Store.com. This will make sure that type-in traffic for the non-hyphenated version lands on your web site. It also prevents domain name squatters from infringing on your domain name to pick up free traffic buy purchasing variations of your domain name and redirecting them elsewhere.
Orangetree Internet Service LLC, located in Santa Cruz, CA., provides technical assistance to small and medium sized businesses with Domain Registration Services, including domain portfolio management. Contact us at 830-212-1884 for more information.