Secrets of Choosing a Domain Name that Deliver Results

Want more Internet traffic? Choosing A Domain Name strategically can help!

Choosing the most appropriate domain name for your new on-line business is a great deal more important than most people realise. There’s certainly a lot more to choosing a domain name than just finding something that sounds cool.

Did you know that the domain name that you select to host your website on can have a significant effect on your Internet traffic and the overall effectiveness of your site, especially from a search engine perspective? If you are choosing a domain name strategically and base your choice on keyword research then it can help you to get listed in search engines quicker and start driving targeted visitors to your website a lot faster!

Just in case you’re not aware, choosing a domain name, which is also referred to by some people as a URL (this stands for Uniform Resource Locator) are the word or words that people type into a web browsers address bar to find your website. Simply put, it is the word between www. and .com or .net etc.

There are a few different schools of thought regarding choosing a domain name. The original theory was that you should select an easy to remember word, which contains as few characters as possible, so that it is quicker and easier for people to type. Preferably a word that is descriptive and helps people identify with your website straight away. But is this really the best type of domain to host your site on? We think not, let us explain why.

Some people choose a domain name that relates to an already established brand or traditional business that they own, a good example of this is a company like Nike who own www.nike.com or someone like the movie rental company Blockbuster who own www.blockbuster.com . However, most companies like this one who have been established globally for decades that have probably spent hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising are in a very different position to the majority of small business owners and entrepreneurs who don’t have the luxury of large marketing budgets.

The most logical school of thought and the one that we propose to our clients when choosing a domain name is that it should be selected so that it is search engine friendly and focused towards their target audience. It should be based on the most appropriate keyword phrase that people would type into a search engine to find a website or business like yours.

If you owned a romantic restaurant in London, let’s call it for this example “The Enchanted Garden”. Instead of building and hosting your website on the obvious domain name choice of www.theenchantedgarden.co.uk it would be strategically better to buy the domain www.romantic-restaurant-london.co.uk and build the website on this.  You can always for the other domain name to it, if you wanted it printed on your marketing material.

Why you may ask? This is because 28 people a day (according to Wordtracker) type the phrase “romantic restaurant London” into search engines and only 8 type in “enchanted garden” and they are probably aren’t looking for a restaurant anyway.

Having a keyword rich domain name is going to help you to get closer to the all important number one spot on Google for the phrase “romantic restaurant London” which 26 people a day will type into search engines when they are looking for a restaurant like yours. It will also help you with the search phrase “London restaurant” which has 573 daily searches if your search engine optimise (SEO) your website for these search terms.

Don’t forget that you can also buy the domain name www.theenchantedgarden.co.uk and point or mask this to your website once people have learnt of your restaurant or you choose to advertise it elsewhere, in a newspaper for example. People will be able to find your site by typing either domain name directly into the browser address bar. But this is more about “branding” than search engine marketing.

Some people unfortunately don’t realise that the extension (.com, .net, .co.uk etc) of the domain name that you purchase is also important and end up buying some very obscure ones. The majority of people prefer to purchase a .com (even people in the U.K.) if it is available even though a .com is really associated to the U.S.A. If you are a U.K. company is it better to own a .co.uk? They are cheaper to purchase and if you wish to target U.K. traffic then you will probably receive better listings in the local search engines. My advice would be to buy the .com as well if it is available, especially from a brand protection point of view. I am purely suggestion that it maybe better to have your site built using the .co.uk if you have a U.K. target audience and a .com if you want to target America and the rest of the World because search engines consider this when the list websites.

It is estimated that of 100 million domain names that have been purchased only 10 million of them are in use. Why is this you may ask? Many people buy domain names because they see it as one way of protecting an idea for a new internet business. But in reality the majority of them never get round to building it. Alternatively it can be seen by some as an investment. There are lots of websites like www.sedo.com that help people to promote and sell domain names at a premium.

In the infancy of the internet some people realised that domain names could become valuable commodities. A great example of this is the domain www.sex.com which has been the subject of a ten year legal battle and has now had a book written about it’s history to date. Each domain name is unique and as such, some once purchased can be resold at a premium.

Finally, there is a great deal to consider when planning and building a successful on-line business. The goal is to drive as much targeted traffic to your website as possible and choosing a domain name strategically to host your website on can help you achieve this.

In conclusion, choosing a domain name that is keyword rich and hosting your website on it is another way to increase the number of visitors to your site and improve the position of your website on search engines. If branding is important to you and your strategy then we propose buying two domain names. One for search engines and one for people, however, branding is a whole topic of its own and we will discuss this in more detail elsewhere. Traffic is key to your success on-line, without it you will fail and it doesn’t matter if you have the sexiest branding in the World because if nobody else gets to see it, then it is wasted! 

To find out how our SEO specialists can help you drive more traffic to your website contact us today.

<< Return to the Homepage from the Choosing a Domain Name page