Your Domain Name Describes Your Internet Business

When deciding on a domain name for your online presence, there are a few important things to consider. Having the right domain name will present your business to the world in a way that is positive and enhance all of your other branding efforts. It needs to be clever and easy to remember so your customer can find you. More importantly, you need to keep in mind that for your website to get noticed by new customers it needs to attract the interest of the search engines, and there are a few key ways to do this.

Initially, you should try and find a name that describes your business clearly and is reasonably short and easy to remember. The single, easiest way to get a better result with most search engines is by having a good descriptor about your site in the name. Even though you can apply a lot of other techniques to improve your SEO within the content, this one factor is amazingly powerful. Be careful to not go overboard and pack too many words into the domain name for your business, remember to keep it short. Even though this is a sure-fire way of improving your rankings, it can get annoying. Nobody likes to remember “We-sell-the-best-coffee-on-the-planet.com” if they can more easily find “bestcoffee.com”. The challenge is that the web has been around for a while, so most of the domains are already spoken for, creativity is key. The good thing about packing these terms into your actual domain name is that the search engines love this. Just having these terms in the name will really help you get higher in the searches than someone that embeds keywords in their pages.

Try and avoid using dashes, numbers and special characters in your choice as these can be easy to forget for your users and you will probably end up sending them to another site if they enter your address without them. It’s also a good idea to avoid clever spellings for your name such as “dogz” or “catz” as this can confuse your visitors. The whole point of having a website is making it easy for folks to find it. It may be tempting to tweak the word since many of the conventional spellings may be taken, but it can backfire on you.

Avoid any terms that may be trademarked. Even words that are derivative of a trademark can get you in trouble these days, so be careful when you settle on a name and make sure you’re not trespassing on any protected terms. In the early days of the web, any name you could grab was fine, since a lot of the established trademark law wasn’t easily applied to this new medium called the internet. In the years since, the web has become a hotbed of activity for trademark protection and will be enforced, so be careful.

The real trick when picking your name is to be flexible and remember that you are trying to settle on a name that reflects your business name or your type of business. If your business name is Supreme Paints, don’t worry so much about trying to secure a domain that fits your name into the URL. Even though this is a good way for your current customers to remember your address, it does very little to drive new customers to your site. Picking a domain name that expands on the concept of paint, would serve you better. Remember that once a visitor hits your site, you can brand it any way you want. So for example, if a customer finds you as “greatpaint.com”, you can easily brand your homepage they land on as Supreme Paints so they know who you are. If you are having a problem finding a name that suits your business, most domain registrars have a great search feature to show the names that are available for either a name you want, or terms you want. Even though it would be great to have your name in the “.com” domain, be sure to search the other domains as well. In today’s internet, “greatpaints.net” is almost as good as “greatpaint.com”.

Picking the perfect domain name is a very important step in helping your business to expand on the web. Following the suggestions outlined can help you pick a good one that will drive traffic to your site and flood you with new visitors. Keep in mind that the name you pick is really the gateway these customers will use to find and buy from your site.

Follow these suggestions:

- Keep it short and easy to remember and avoid trademarks
- Use key terms that apply to your core business to help with search
- Avoid dashes, numbers, special characters, and odd spellings
- Use the domain registrars search function to suggest names

Greg Mangin (Gman) is a professional engineer and a top network marketer coaching a team of profit conscious entrepreneurs to make an income from home. Greg uses systems created by top industry earners, a branded, customizable attraction marketing platform that is totally generic and can be applied to any direct sales or mlm business. Greg can be contacted through his website at http://eza.MLMglobalDomination.com?t=domain or personally at 812-582-0391.

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What to Do If Your Favorite Domain Name Has Already Been Taken

The first thing you can try is to buy the domain name off of the person who presently owns it. This is not uncommon but it will cost you significantly more to buy an existing domain name than it would if you were to create one that no one currently has. However, asking if the domain is for sale from the current owner is one option you can explore.

Many people get caught up in using .com and have the impression that it is the only domain name available. This is not the case and you can try other domains such as .net, .tv, or even .org to see if you can still get the web address that you want. Of course the danger in using this route is that it can confuse customers and potentially cause problems with getting traffic to your website. The way to combat that is to make sure your website is optimized for exposure so that people will find your site when they search for it.

Sometimes patience is the best method to getting what you want and that may be the case with getting the web address you want. Check with the company that registered the domain name to the current owner and then see when their registration expires. Many registration companies allow you to put in a back order which means that if the current owner decides to not update their registration, or forgets to, then you will be able to purchase the domain name.

Another method you can try is to use a slight variation of the name you wanted and see if that variation is available. For example, if you wanted to register ABCcompany(dot)com but someone else has already registered it, then try TheABCcompany(dot)com or some other variation on the web address. The potential for confusion is there again but with a proper search engine optimization approach, you can eliminate much of the confusion that your address could cause any potential customers.

And for the absolute best solution of what you should do if your favorite domain name is already taken, and what to do after you get that perfect web address, go to http://whoisdirectory.com/needawebsite

By Jean Kadau – Professional Business Reviews, Internet Marketer, Proofreader/Editor for 19 years http://www.WhoIsJeanKadau.com

It’s All in a Domain Name

When you have decided to start your online business the first thing you will need to do is choose a domain name. This is the name that your website will be called, and will be the most important part of your URL link. A lot of people enjoy the process of choosing a domain name, whilst others may feel a bit overwhelmed. This is understandable because your domain name is so important, and not something you can easily change if you do not like it anymore.

As I mentioned before, choosing a domain name can be a bit overwhelming. Luckily there are some basic guidelines that will help you make your decision. Firstly, remember that shorter domain names always work better. A shorter name will be more memorable, and if your domain name is too long the people may tend to forget a part of it. If they are really seeking your website, they may type the part of your domain name that they do remember into a search engine, but the results brought up may not point to your site! A short, simple domain name will be more effective with regards to your marketing, both on and offline.

Naturally, it’s a good idea to use your business name as your domain name. If your business name is too long, shorten it appropriately. If your business name is not available perhaps you could work with a variation of it by putting a dash in between two parts of the word. Alternatively, you could choose a domain name that suits the niche market that you are trying to target. Get creative with the different variations you can use. Always remember to keep the name as short and simple as possible. Another good idea is to use a targeted keyword as your domain name. For example, if you are going to have a business that sells chocolates and confectionaries you could perhaps use a domain name called chocolategoods or the like.

Once you have decided on the actual name part, you are going to need to decide on which domain extension you are going to use. The most popularly used domain extension is .com if you are aiming to target an international audience. Oftentimes .biz will be used by companies, whilst .net is normally for networking sites and some hosting or software companies. It is recommended that you steer clear of the .info extension, as even though it is the cheapest domain extension to register, it is not taken very seriously in the online world. If you are going to primarily target your local audience it is best to use the extension of your country. When in doubt, simply use .com. With a .com you can never go wrong! If you have an organization or political party a .org site is always nice and suitable.

As you can see, it is not too difficult to choose a domain name. A lot of good registration sites will offer you variations of your requested domain name if the one you have chosen is taken.

Christine Anderssen is the owner of Tailormade4you, a company that specialises in web design and hosting for your website. Visit http://www.tm4yhosting.co.za for more information.

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