For novices on the web, the question is “How do I start my own website?”. First: What do you want your website to portray? Thoughtful consideration of your website’s future direction will help you in deciding on the optimum domain name for your site. Careful consideration of your website’s domain name can pay off in dividends once your website is published online. Good search engine optimization, or SEO, begins with domain name selection. Not to mention your positioning and branding with your customer.
You have searched for your desired domain name and it turns out someone else has already snagged it. Now what? Can you still get it? Maybe. It’s possible, but with conditions to consider. With some research and hard work you can get the domain name you want even if it is already spoken for. Instead, let’s check out some alternative strategies to get the domain name you want:
Hyphenated Names Sometimes it is a good strategy to just take the same domain name and hyphenate it as in turning bobsautoparts.com into bobs-auto-parts.com. Is hyphenating the best way to go? Possibly, but maybe not. For example, if the domain name you want is already taken AND well known, most likely this is not a good idea, because most web surfers would likely just type the non-hyphenated version into their browsers and thus could end up at your competitor’s website. Not what you were after! Word to the wise: keep the domain name as short as possible. The longer the name, especially with dashes in between words, the more likely that potential visitors to your site will enter it incorrectly into their browsers, thus foiling the chances of them visiting your website and costing you customers! Definitely shorter is better. But if the name you have chosen is already taken and there is no chance of getting it from it’s owner, and the owner either has no website or a poorly designed one with little traffic, this can be a good strategy in purchasing a name. But be careful: the last thing you want is to cause internet domain name confusion because you have decided on a domain name registration that is so close to a major competitor’s name that you end up losing business to them.
Longer or Shorter? If you want to, you can purchase up to a 67 character long domain name. You could purchase a domain name like thelongestdomainnameintheworldandthensome
andthensomemoreandmore.com which is 63 characters long, but why would you want to do that? Can you envision anyone wanting to type it into their browser? My website is www.StartYourWebsiteToday.com When choosing my domain name I wanted something that in a few words would tell the web surfer what to expect from my website. Good name selection can be helpful also with search engine ranking. When choosing your domain name try to keep it short and concise, and if at all possible let the name tell the story of the site. Shorter is better here.
Brand Name or Generic The answer here is it depends. Definitely if your business is known by a fairly well known brand name, then you would want to try and secure that as your domain name. For instance, Nike.com is a well known brand name site, although there is nothing in the domain name to suggest that it is a site about shoes. Still, Nike is such a well known brand name to the public that people automatically know what they will be shopping for when they get there. If your brand name is well known, definitely try to obtain your brand name as a domain name. But if your company is Nike or Coca Cola or Budweiser don’t discount the idea of buying the domain name shoes.com or soda.com or beer.com if they are available as well. People often search the web using generic terms, more so even than brand names. A person is more likely to search the internet with generic terms like shoes or footwear or sneakers than to search by a single brand name, even one as big as Nike. Research your domain name as thoroughly as you can, including looking for generic keywords which could be a good fit as a potential domain name. You can have as many domain names as you want pointing to a single website, so the more generic terms you can acquire that directly describe your business, the better. A generic name if your business is new or not yet well known can get great results, if you can find a good one. To start your search for your own unique domain name, here is a link to a domain name search engine. Bottom line, the beginning phase of how to start your own website is choosing the right domain name.