How To Choose A Domain Name For Your Website
Coming up with names is hard. Not everyone is good at it. But it’s the first thing you do when building a brand new website for your brand. Choose the right one, and that will increase your chances of success. Choose the wrong one, and you’ll have to live with it for as long as you have a website. So do it carefully. Here are our ideas on how to choose a domain name for your website.
How to choose a domain name for your website — our tips
Don’t overthink it — and don’t overpay
Sometimes you see a name that’s too good to ignore. An infamous example is pizza.com which sold for $2,6 million back in 2008; now it’s worth a tiny fraction of that. In fact, I can’t even open it. So yeah, don’t overpay for a shiny domain. Name matters, but the quality of your site, SEO, and reputation matter much more. Google became a giant not because it was easier to remember but because it was so good when it launched.
Extensions matter
.com, .net, .org, and the other recognizable letters that come after the dot are called a Top-Level Domain, or TLD. While they seem not as important as the word that comes before, it’s better to choose them carefully. They tell a lot about you or your Target Audience. So if you cater to the local crowd, choose the TLD that makes it clear. New Yorkers like sites that end with .nyc; Canadians respect .ca. You get the point. You can also use .shop, .art, and the other, less well-known TLDs. There are also ccTLDs — country codes, which might sound interesting. There’s a reason Anguilla (.AI) is so popular among the techies. But don’t make the name too quirky: English-speaking people usually type .com when they can’t remember the word, which makes it so popular.
Keep it short
Most people use Google to go to the sites they know the names of because it’s easier than typing, but it’s still essential to have a name you can type by memory. So try to keep it short so that a person can guess the address even if they can’t quite recall it. Overly long URLs will scare off potential visitors.
Keywords matter
Keywords are crucial if you want your visitors to find you organically. Every piece of content on your site must be optimized, but it’s best to start with the domain name itself. Try not to choose a completely random word; make it relevant to the type of content you’re offering. Try Google Keyword Planner to come up with something good.
Hyphens aren’t your friends
While hyphens seem like a good choice for readability, they are a big no-no in our book. When remembering a name, people never use it, and you won’t feel comfortable pronouncing the website’s address with a hyphen. “Beluga-hyphen-Lab”? No thank you.