Most of you readers might be thinking, why am I even writing on a topic like this? Choosing a domain name should be a no-brainer. But in reality, many people choose a domain name without thinking too much about what they’re choosing. Here are some important tips to consider in order to have an effective domain name.

1. Choose a plausible name - This is very important. Don’t choose a domain name “mrchaverskewysflowerwebsite.com”. Instead choose something shorter, nicer, and easy to remember like “greatflowertips.com”.
2. Choose a domain that reflects your site – This might sound obvious, but surprisingly, there are domains that have no obvious reflection of the site. So if you’re going to make a website about cars, make sure the domain has something to do with cars.
3. Keep it short – “mrchaverskewysflowerwebsite.com” is not an example of a short and sweet domain. If you want search engines to pickup your domain, limit the name to under 55 characters. But my recommendation would be to keep it under 15-20 characters unless you have two long words that sound plausible like “bloggingunderground.com”.
4. Dashes/Hyphens – This is a question that is frequently asked. Should I use dashes in my domain name. When it comes to search engine rankings, dashes help domain names due to the alphanumeric hierarchy search engines use to rank domain names, so if you want traffic to come mostly from search engines, that’s something to consider. Perhaps you can register two domain names, one with hyphens, one with out. Dashes also help search engines break down keywords. However, as my own preference, for a professional site, I would register without dashes because it looks neater and dashes can throw off some visitors.
5. .COM/.NET/.ORG/etc… Which domain extension should I register with? .COM domain names are valued more than other names and are more commonly used than any other domain. However, this does not mean you should get a .COM. If you’re operating in Russia and you sell furniture, you probably want to get a .ru domain. But if you want to register a normal English site, think about what it will be used for. Some names sound better with a .org extension, others with a .net. Take for example my company site, AlloraWeb.net. When I was choosing my domain name, I decided to market it as .NET because it sounded better. But this is not to say that I did not register a .COM. I registered a .COM as well for the following reason. When a person types in say AlloraWeb into their browser without typing in an extension, they will be directed immediately to AlloraWeb.com. If you do not own that domain name, then you’re basically sending visitors to a competitor’s website. So if possible, try to own the .COM name.

In summary, I would like to say choose a domain name that sounds good, has good keywords, and is easy to remember. When I was registering my college book swap website, I went through several domain names before I settled in on the right one. First I registered coedexchange.com and coed-exchange.com. Then I changed it to classmatechannel.com, and finally I settled in on classmateswap.com.

On a final note, I read often how authors will write “a domain name will cost you about $40-$50 per year”. I will say this: a .com domain name is going to cost you $5.99 per year. Visit name.com for details. TLD domain name registrations cost no more than $10 per year and if you run across one that does, just ask me and I’ll give you another company to register with.

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