Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Choosing the Right Domain Name

Choosing the Right Domain Name by Minh Son

SEO Domain Name Selection



Choosing the right domain name for your blog

Having a Domain Name means you're serious. It's the first step into the ring, and you want to make a lasting impression. Your name can help show your professionalism, commitment and implant a feeling of credibility to your blog. Having a "your-name@yourdomain.com" email address is really cool for one, and helps you to look more genuine to your blog readers (a visitor would much rather email someone from the same website than a random Gmail account). A well-chosen domain name can also enhance your website's topic, branding and leave a lasting impression on visitors.



Before you even start looking for your domain name, however, you should be asking yourself the following questions:



1. What is my blog's topic? - What is it all about? Most serious bloggers will pick domain names that indicate the topic in some manner. There are exceptions, such as John Chow's self titled website, JohnChow.com for one.

2. What is your blog's purpose? - Why do people need your blog? Is it a tutorial/help site, a personal expertise site, a general information site or something else?

3. Are you the only one who will be authoring content for your blog? - Is this a joint venture with a partner, and how much of the content do you think will be your own?

4. How are you writing the blog? - Is it formal, informal, personal or humorous?

5. What demographics are you trying to reach with your blog? - Who will be reading it?

6. Lastly, what kind of readers will you be trying to get if all the person sees is your domain name? If you just see a page of links, will a reader know what your blog is most likely about when they come to your domain name, and can it appeal to the type of people you're targeting in your blog content?



I have always done well with domain names that reflect the blog's content. If there is a key phrase that keeps coming up post after post, then you might have a domain name within that phrase.



The Words used in your Domain Name Play an Essential Part



There are many posts on the net about what words you should use in your domain and how to determine them through keyword research, but the first thing I recommend doing is figuring out whether you will be focusing on topic content or whether you want to "brand" your site with the domain, or even, a mix of both. As you can see, I went purely for the keyphrase approach by taking the essence of what every post builds towards, and created the domain from that ubiquity. I really wanted everyone who sees my domain to know exactly what it is about, and I wanted to make it super 'stoopidly' easy for the search engines to find a good relationship between my domain and blog content. Other excellent examples of this method are SmartPassiveIncome.com, Problogger.com and the PetSuppliesPlus.com domains. In each one, it's really easy to guess what the whole website is about.



The other choice you have is to use your domain to "Brand" the website. In many cases, the name still reflects the content to some extent, but can be more vague. This method is more about making the name more memorable in the vast seas of domain names people see. Probably the best ever example of this is Google - Although it could have easily been named SearchEngine.com, Google stands out in people's minds, so much so that we don't search the net any more, we "Google" the net. This type of naming is done for reader loyalty and word-of-mouth advertising. People tend to remember unique names such as picasa, google, zoho and wixi better than generic keyword based names.



Becoming Evergreen...



Will your domain name stand the test of time? Will your topic always fit the name, or as you blog grows and expands, will the content topics and domain name drift apart slowly breaking the relationship between them? You want something that will always be pertinent to the information you will be authoring.

Isthistoolongforadomainname.com



Get the point? You can have a maximum of 67 characters in a domain, but why??? It is generally accepted that the shorter the name the better, but I would also argue that longer ones are ok just so long as they roll off the tounge easily and are memorable. This blog's domain is in the grey area. It rolls off the tounge easy, but it's not that easy to remember if it was just mentioned to you in small talk. I am relying on excellent content that people will talk about more than once to their friends.

.com is the Domain God



I know there are lots of debates, but here is my take on the com part of your domain (also technically know as the Top Level Domain, or TLD): People are programmed to type dot com in many situations. If they only remember the first part, but forgot that your domain was a .co.cc domain, they might try .com first, and at worst, get stuck on whatever website came up first because something caught their eye. Whenever possible, I grab a .com first, and .net as the only alternative. If neither is available, I will go for a completely differen't phrase. Here is a small secret of mine... it can cost a fortune to pick up all the other designations available, but you also want variations of your domain for different searches, so I create variations on the domain and pick up free domains from the co.cc website. YES, FREE DOMAIN NAMES. I just redirect those variations to my main website to try to catch more traffic. So, I have cashgeneratingblogs.com, but I also have moneymakingblogs.co.cc, cashblogging.co.cc, makemoremoney.co.cc all forwarding to the main site. This is for people who type "How to make more money" in Google's search box. Hey! My domain is an exact match, and should rank pretty high in the list.



I personally hate hyphens in the domain. If you really need it to make your domain name unique, use only one. It is really frustrating to try and tell somebody a domain name verbally that has hyphens all over the place. Moreover, it really increases chances of mistypings and other user related errors.



Avoid using trademarks. If you have an affiliate site for George Forman's Grill, you might use the domain name "bestgrills.com" or "plugingrill.com", but steer way clear of using Mr. Foreman's name. It also would apply to a domain such as "pepsisucks.com" They have every right to close you down for using their trademark.



Get the right Domain registration company, and use only them to register your domains with. It's just easier if they are all in one spot. I personally use cheap-domainregistration.com for all of mine.



The last thing that I'll leave you with is the knowledge that there are more factors than just the domain name. It won't necessarily make or break the website's chances of success, but it is a critical step in the process of making more money and blogging successfully.



For more information, go to http://cashgeneratingblogs.com