But you might ask- “What constitutes a good domain name choice?”.  The answer to this depends on what type of site you are planning.  What I mean by that is if your site is just going to be devoted to family photos and events, domain name choice isn’t as important as it might be otherwise.  Why not?  Most likely in that circumstance you’re not looking for tons of traffic, friends and family are your target audience, to keep them up to date.  So your domain name choice in a case like that is not as crucial as it would be if you were looking for tons of traffic to the site.   

So you can name a website anything as long as it is only meant for a select few.  It’s only if traffic is a factor and you want to attract customers, and as many as possible, that the domain name you choose to register really matters.  So……

What if you are looking to attract customers?  And to get as much traffic coming to your site as possible?

It can bring huge dividends to have a domain name that drives traffic to your company name and website.  If your website is about car parts for example, do you really expect the average web surfer to remember how to get to your website if it is named “bobsthingsforsale.com” or some other unrelated name?  The best strategy is to find a domain name that directly relates to your business, whether it is the business name itself or related to the category of business.  For example, a car parts website should have a domain name like carparts.com or bobsautoparts.com, something that immediately associates the domain name with the theme of the site.  It’s all about branding, and making a lasting impression on the target audience or customers.

The WhoIs database contains all domain names registered, and when you are searching it will show whether or not your desired name is already registered.  I have conveniently placed a domain name search engine on StartYourWebsiteToday.com for this very purpose.  After searching for the domain name, the results given will instantly show whether or not the domain name is available, and if so, give you the option to immediately register it.  If it’s not available, several alternative domain names will be proposed, to help you fine tune your search, or possibly giving you an acceptable alternative domain name to register instead.

OK, so now you’ve found the domain name you want, but someone else owns it.  Can you still get it?  Well, let’s consider that.  It’s possible, but there are conditions.  With some research and hard work you can get the domain name you want even if it is already spoken for.  Instead, let’s check out some alternative strategies to get the domain name you want:

Hyphenated Names If the domain name you want is already taken, consider hyphenating it, as in taking billsplumbingsupplies.com and making it bills-plumbing-supplies.com.  Is it always the best strategy?  Possibly, but maybe not.  If you want a domain name that is already taken by someone else and is already a well known, well traveled website, this might be a bad move, because users already familiar with the original domain name will just type the original, non-hyphenated version into their web browser, and end up not at your site but at your competitor’s site.  Not what you were after!  Word to the wise: keep the domain name as short as possible.  The longer the name, especially with dashes in between words, the more likely that potential visitors to your site will enter it incorrectly into their browsers, thus foiling the chances of them visiting your website and costing you customers!  Definitely shorter is better.  Another school of thought: IF the web domain you want is already taken, IF the owner of the domain name won’t give it up, and IF the website associated with it is non-existent or poorly designed with low traffic, hyphenating the name might make sense after all.  But be careful:  the last thing you want is to cause internet domain name confusion because you have decided on a domain name registration that is so close to a major competitor’s name that you end up losing business to them.

Longer or Shorter?  You can purchase domain names up to 67 characters in length.  You could purchase a domain name like thelongestdomainnameintheworldandthensome
andthensomemoreandmore.com which is 63 characters long, but why would you want to do that?  Who would want to type it into a browser?  My website is www.StartYourWebsiteToday.com  and has a domain name that tells what kind of website you will be surfing to.  Good name selection can be helpful also with search engine ranking.  When choosing your domain name try to keep it short and concise, and if at all possible let the name tell the story of the site.  Remember, keep it short!

Brand Name or Generic  Whether or not to call your website by a brand name or to make the name a more generic description of your business online is the question.  Definitely if your business is known by a fairly well known brand name, then you would want to try and secure that as your domain name.  For instance, Nike.com is a well known brand name site, although there is nothing in the domain name to suggest that it is a site about shoes.  Still, Nike is such a well known brand name to the public that people automatically know what they will be shopping for when they get there.  If your brand name is well known, definitely try to obtain your brand name as a domain name.  But if your company is Nike or Coca Cola or Budweiser don’t discount the idea of buying the domain name shoes.com or soda.com or beer.com if they are available as well.  People often search the web using generic terms, more so even than brand names.  A person is more likely to search the internet with generic terms like shoes or footwear or sneakers than to search by a single brand name, even one as big as Nike.  Research your domain name as thoroughly as you can, including looking for generic keywords which could be a good fit as a potential domain name.  You can have as many domain names as you want pointing to a single website, so the more generic terms you can acquire that directly describe your business, the better.   A generic name if your business is new or not yet well known can get great results, if you can find a good one.  To start your search for your own unique domain name, here is a link to a domain name search engine.  Bottom line, the beginning phase of how to start your own website is choosing the right domain name. 

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