The Joy of Domain Names; How to Pick an Effective Domain Name

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The Joy of Domain Names

If this is your first website, I recommend you pick one to three names to start off with. If you already have a website you might want to expand your domain name collection. I know of one Infoguru who boosts she has 50 domain names.

First, what NOT to do when you pick a domain name:

  1. Don’t pick names that are too long.
  2. Don’t pick names that are hard to spell.
  3. Don’t bother with .net and .org. Most everyone defaults to “.com”. If you go with the .net or .org and someone types it as a .com, they will get a Web site and they won’t know it’s not yours.
  4. Do not add a hyphen in the middle of your .url as this is a big impediment to people remembering your name. Explaining to people your domain name has a dash in it really complicates things. Read on for a better solution to this dilemma

WHAT TO DO:

Buy your business name. If it’s not available, work on creative variations, like adding short words before or after. Words like “your”, “the” and “team” work well. We decided to add “Web” to our new address. www.AlmostEverythingWeb.com

Buy your name if it is available. It helps people who have heard of you find you later. It helps your friends and colleagues get to your site easily. And if you are a public speaker or publicizing your personality, definitely buy your name.

Consider buying variations and common misspellings of your name, especially if you can’t buy your name.

Buy keywords related to your site. To reinforce particular keywords, buy those as domain names as well

In summary: Buy at least three and perhaps many more domain names. Your business name, your name and your keywords.


A good place to buy domain names is www.godaddy.com. Good service, cost is low at less than $10 and the whole godaddy.com feel is fun as well.
Point of Clarification: You aren’t setting up separate sites for all these domains. They all point to your principal domain name.

Happy hunting. Oh. If you have trouble finding names that are available, write a long list and then sleep on it. You will find the perfect domain names.

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