Choosing a good
domain isn't always easy
So you need a domain name for your brand new internet business.
You may even have some cool ideas for a new domain name combination
that will really impress your friends. Question is, is your
new domain name going to help your business or hurt it?
What could be simpler than choosing a domain name right? Wrong.
There are a number of things you need to consider and research
before you register your favorite domain name.
First off, what is a domain name and why would I want one?
A domain name makes our lives much easier when surfing the
internet. You see, all computers on the internet are actually
referenced with what is called IP addresses. On the internet,
IP addresses are four sets of numbers that serve like street
addresses allowing two computers to talk over a network. An
example of an IP address is the one for Google.com. It is
216.239.39.99. If you enter this IP address into the address
bar of your browser it will bring you to Google's home page
in that very same way that typing www.google.com would get
you there. Unfortunately, we humans have difficulty remembering
our phone numbers let alone so many digits for all kinds of
sites. That's one of the main reasons domain names were invented.
Domain names make it easy for us humans to remember how to
find a site. Most people know Google.com and anyone familiar
with the internet knows that to reach Google, you simply type
www.google.com in your address bar and you are transported
to their website. The same goes for Disney.com, Microsoft.com,
CNN.com, etc?
Now you would think that choosing a domain name would simply
be a matter of choosing something that is unique and that
people would remember. The problem with that approach is that
most of us don't have the money needed to turn our name into
a brand name on the mass market. Most of us need to rely on
our prospects reaching our website through other means. The
best of these are search engines.
Choosing a good domain name for your site starts with the
main keywords you have chosen to focus on for your website.
Before you launch your business, you should conduct some preliminary
research online to determine which keywords have the most
traffic and the least number of other websites competing for
that particular keyword. Some tools that help in this are
the Overture keyword suggestion tool and Wordtracker.com.
Both of these tools will give you a rough idea of how much
traffic each of your chosen keywords will likely get each
month. This helps to determine which keywords to focus on.
Should you choose a domain name that includes your main keywords?
In most cases, the answer is yes. Google and to some degree
Yahoo both give you a small boost for your domain name. If
your domain name happens to contain your targeted keywords,
your domain name will help you in your quest for higher search
engine rankings. Now if you do everything else wrong, having
your main keywords in your domain name will not magically
catapult you to the top of the listings. Many other parts
of your site must be working for you as well. Other things
you can do to improve rankings are beyond the scope of this
article.
Choosing a keyword rich domain is a smart business move.
For some sites, it could be the edge they need to move up
a few spots in the search engines. When choosing a keyword
rich domain name, you may want to consider hyphens between
your keywords. An example is cheap-airline-tickets.com. Current
research trends for Google and Yahoo suggest that hyphens
are the only way to separate keywords within a URL that will
give you a rankings boost.
Why not simply choose your company name? Simple. Is your
company a household name? Are you so dominant in a category
that people have stopped referring to the generic name of
your category and use your brand name like Kleenex has for
tissue paper? If so, register your company name. If not, register
a keyword rich domain wherever possible.
You may be thinking, "But I already own a domain name that
is my company name. Should I go and register a new domain
and point it to the same site? The short answer is no. Years
ago, you could improve your rankings on search engines simply
by setting up lots of doorway pages and having them all link
back to your home page with all kinds of domain names. That
tactic nowadays can backfire. You are better off optimizing
individual pages within your existing website than you are
creating a whole bunch of "fluff" sites just to increase rankings.
The technique I suggest above is really best suited for brand
new business ventures. If you still have not registered your
domain name for that special online business you are about
to start, then make it keyword rich wherever possible. If
you have already launched your business, you'll just have
to take advantage of this information next time you start
another online venture.
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work as advertised and the reason why they are recommended
by FreeSEOTutorials.com
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www.SEOElite.com |
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