How do I choose a good domain name?

Tip 1: Keep Your Domain and Website Name as the Same

Remember that you domain name should be your website name. This is because when people think about your website, the first thing that flashes on their mind will be your site name, thus if this name is also your URL, they will automatically know where to go. For instance, when people think of HowsHosting.com, they only need to type this site name into the browser, without the need to search for the web address.

In fact, this practice is especially important if you hold your site as an e-commerce one. Generally, you name your online stores with the company name, brand name, or the type of the main products, so you need to choose your domain accordingly, which can effectively reflect your business.

Tip 2: Focus on the Domain Name with .com Extension

It is worth trying to grab a .com domain name when you set up a new site, after all, the .com is the mostly used TLD, and is preferred by both visitors and search engines. Also, we highly recommend you redirecting other domains with different extensions to your main domain name that ends in .com.

Tip 3: Keep Your Domain Short but Not Obscure

It is far better to select a domain name which is short in length, because it makes easy for people to type and remember. Conversely, if your domain is long with a series of unrelated letters like http://tohwtognoe.com, how can people recall it and type it into the address bar? Besides, from the online marketing point of view, the shorter your domain name is, the more likely people will be to introduce your site to their friends.

However, keeping the domain short doesn’t mean that you have to name your domain like http://bwh360.com when your original choice is HowsHosting. In some cases, you need to expand your domain with some specific words, which can clearly explain your site, and in the meanwhile, make people feel easy to remember and type correctly.

Tip 4: Make Your Domain Name Be Unique

A unique domain name can be remembered easily. As a matter of fact, many single-word domains are not available, and you had better create a special word. Here are the suggestions: trying to compound two simple words (Facebook), to use a phrase, to blend some parts of two words, to tweak a word, to affix a word with a suffix or prefix, or to create a unique name that is creative and can be easily used as a brand name.

Tip 5: Keep Your Domain Name Simple

Keep away from some complex spellings and pronouncing because they are hard to remember. It is one thing to come up with a great characteristic name that is not difficult to remember. Another point you need to pay attention is to avoid hyphens. This is because when there is a hyphen in one domain name, people are very likely to forget where the hyphen should go, or even totally forget that this domain is separated by a hyphen.

What’s more, a hyphenated domain name might make readers confused with some similar domains. For example, if people want to type your domain, which is bluehost-hosting-review, but type in bluehosthostingreview instead, that might take advantages to your competitors, not to you.

Tip 6: Make Your Domain Rich in Keyword

Choose a domain name that is full of keywords that are related to the website. That is because when people think about your website, the first thing that comes to their mind is your website name. For example, if the website is something about cars, the site name might be Carsale.com or We Do the Research, You Do the Driving which must contain with the word “car”. Besides, including the keywords that people usually enter when searching for the products or services can help to improve your ranking in search engines (which increases traffic) and just makes more sense to the customers.

Tip 7: Make Your Domain Name Easily Understood

When readers look at or hear your domain name at the very beginning, this domain name should be easily understood which clearly tells what the website is about. Thus, it is very important for you to choose a domain that is easy-to-understand and can be used as a brand as well. The goal is to make the domain name to be passed on easily and to be memorable. This is more likely to happen if people don’t have to stop and think about how to say or spell it.

Tip 8: Focus on Your Website Content

Never choose a domain name of “cosmetic.com” for a fishing website. You have to make sure that the domain and your website content are highly related. It is possible that your website may contain multiple categories. In this case, you’d better choose a broad word that can summarize all your categories perfectly. For instance, if you website is used for the selling of balls, sneakers and sportswear, then you can choose the domain of “http://sportselling.com” or something else.

Tip 9: Avoid Duplication

Before purchasing the domain name, you have to make sure that it has not been used as the trademark and business name by any others. After all, domain duplication or infringement issue can cause a great mess for your fortune and website operation.

How to Choose a Domain Name For Your Web Presence

Tip 10: Try Your Best to Avoid Hyphens and Numbers

You always need to bear in mind that anything that can cause confusion and misunderstanding should be avoided. In this case, you’d better not to add any numbers or hyphens into your domain name. After all, if people hear your domain name, they can be confused that whether you are using the Arabic numbers or spell the number out. Also, they may forget the exact number and the number location. As for the dash or the hyphens, people are likely to forget the existence.

Tip 11: Make Your Domain Name Brandable

This tip is really important for some business sites or the official portals and platforms. Making your domain brandable means when people see or hear your domain name, they will realize your brand instantly. Generally, a brandable domain name has the following features.

• No hyphens and numbers for they sound strange and unprofessional.
• The domain should be easy to say and to remember.
• The uniqueness must be ensured.
• No trademark infringement against other business.

Tip 12: Do Not Use Doubled Letters, Numbers and Characters

We highly recommend you to avoid the use of double stuffs, including characters, letters and numbers. After all, the double situation may confuse your readers and most people are likely mis-spell your domain name unintentionally. This can lead to the loss of traffic.

Tip 13: Leave Some Rooms to Grow and to Expand

Generally, we do not recommend you to use a specific keyword for your domain name. After all, this may limit your future possibilities and growth. For instance, if your website currently is about biscuit cooking and you use the word of “biscuit”, it can be hard for you to make your web content broad to other baking fields.

In this case, when choosing a domain name, you can make it related to your target niche but not to be specific. This gives you enough room to grow and does not require you to move to a new domain when you want to add something new to your website.

Tip 14: Act Fast

You should know that domain names sell really fast. After all, they are not the expensive stuff and the registration process is quite simple. In this case, many people will register their target domain far before they start creating a website. Therefore, once you have found a perfect option, you’d better make the purchase as quickly as possible.

Tip 15: Choose A Trust-worth Domain Registrar

There are many bad stories that some small domain registrars suck for their customers’ domain names. Typically, many registrars prevent their customers moving away by locking the domain name. In the worst case, some SCAM registrars directly take the domain name to be their own if you’re closed to be successful. So, you shall register a domain name with a trust-worth provider.