What is a Domain Name

HOW TO CHOOSE A GREAT DOMAIN NAME

Dude Why Does It Matter?

When you decide to create your own blog or website, an important thing which is often overlooked is deciding on the domain name, which is the website (or blog) name, e.g. Facebook.com is a domain name!

Choosing a good domain name is key as making the wrong choice can hurt the value of your blog or website.

You want to think about the purpose of your website/blog, and whether or not it would be better to go for a brandable domain name or perhaps something which is more keyword focused so people know what to expect when they visit your site.

Here are a few tips to help you decide what the best name would be for your new blog or website!

Branding

Focusing on your niche is all fine and dandy, but it will get you no where fast without proper branding.

The domain you choose needs to be simple, to the point, and easy to remember. You don't want to have a long domain name that is hard to remember.

While random names work for some (look at Google), it is a lot harder to build a base, so be sure to pick a relevant name to cut down on sourcing traffic.

Keywords

You may think these are only important in your actual blog posts, but this is wrong. Keywords play a huge and important role in the domain name itself.

With proper keywords, the website may rank higher in search engines, which in turn can bring you more traffic.

You want to look over keywords in your niche and maybe blend one of those words into the domain name for an extra SEO boost.

Domain Length & Characters

The term “the shorter the better” definitely applies when dealing with domain names. A short domain will be easy to remember and it will be easy to type. If you use long words in your blog name, try to use abbreviations instead.

Also, try to avoid hyphens if possible. They tend to devalue your domain over time.

Another thing to watch out for is double letters. You do not want an address that reads “catssociety” as the double “s” looks awkward and it also leaves room for typos by the users themselves. A better option would be “societyofcats”, while it is a little longer, it looks better for both search engines and users.

.Com, .Net or .Org?

Domain extensions are fairly basic and easy to understand. If you have a blog/website that will be based on an organization, obviously, “.org” will be the best option. If it is government based, it will be “.gov”.

While these options are great, when you are not aiming at anything in particular, “.com” will be the best options. Second to that, if it is not available, would be “.net”.