Factors to consider when choosing your domain name | Part 02
Welcome back to part 02 of this article. If you're new here make sure you read part 01 before you get to this part. You can read it here - If you read it already, then let's start with point number four! Happy reading..
4. Consider Buying the Other Main TLDs as Well
Having your main domain name extension secured, it can be a .com or a local TLD that is only step one. Step two is getting all of the other popular TLDs, and then setting them to redirect to your main TLD.
For example, if your desired address is helloworld.com, also consider getting the likes of:
Helloworld.in, helloworld.co, helloworld.net, helloworld.org, helloworld.co.uk, etc.
While this will contribute to your overall domain name bill at the end of the year, you’re also preventing possible trouble further down the line. Mainly, you wouldn’t want to end up competing with another site with the same domain name but ending in a different TLD. However here are some things you shouldn't wish for For example ;- People creating imposter sites — sites that look like yours but aren’t (meant to trick people) also, People registering some of those missing TLDs and then trying to sell them back to you at a much higher rate and because of all this confusion, you will find your genuine visitors mixing up your TLD and not being able to access your website. Which can be deadly for you, especially if you're starting off.
5. Decide on a name that is brandable and remembered?
We all know that branding is crucial to long-term success, but what exactly makes a domain name brandable? There are many factors that come into play here, but the most important ones are as follows:
To make the brainstorming process easier, you can experiment with some combinations of actual words and random suffixes, like I did with the phonology.com example above. The main goal here is to create a potential for the domain name to build brand value over time.
In other words, as much as possible, try making sure the name has a good ring to it. It should be fun to say out loud, and not difficult to memorize immediately. Think about the likes of Uber: It’s short and snappy, and there’s no confusion as to how to spell it — even when mentioned in passing in a conversation.
6. Keep It Short, Simple, and Predictable
We just discussed branding and domain names and how all of that fit together. However, in terms of a domain name, there are a few other general pointers you need to keep in mind apart from the brandability aspect of it. The main pointers here are keeping things short, simple and predictable, So let's start with short,
Try your best to keep your domain name short, which means you should target your domain name to be between 10 to 15 words, you can even make it below 10 but for us 10-15 is a good sweet spot,
Secondly, try your best to keep your domain name as simple as possible, your domain name has to be easily pronounceable, readable, writable and easy to remember and especially very easy to type, This means you need to avoid using underscores, hyphens and many more signs that come on your keyboard, and yes it might look cool in your domain name but not everyone feels that way and ideally tying back to the brandability point of view, you would finally have to think about what your market wants rather than what you want.
Thirdly you want your domain name to be predictable. In the best case scenario you want your potential customer to remember and type your website without even one single issue. For example, let's imagine you own a footwear company and your domain name is fut.com, now fut is a shorter and creative version to say foot, and maybe initially you wanted foot.com but it was taken, so you went with the pronounced sound rather than the spellings. Now sometimes you may find yourself in a pickle when your potential customers hear your brand and spell it as foot.com. Which would send them to the wrong website! Do you understand the issue here? Yes, keeping your brand predictable is all avenues is also a good pointer you can keep in mind.?
7. Buy the Common Misspellings of Your Domain
This, however, can grow your annual domain bill even further, so it’s your call. In general, you’re going to be pretty safe if you just focus on a couple of the most likely misspellings of the domain. Looking at the earlier example, phonolly.com can be spelled as folly.com, phonly.com fonoly.com and many more, hence buying those variable domains as well and redirecting them to your main asite would help you here
8. Use a Thesaurus for Domain Name Ideas
Okay, so no matter what I say about picking a domain name that’s brandable, simple, has a good ring to it, is easy to memorize, and so on and so forth, the fact of the matter is that coming up with a truly good name is hard.
Sometimes, you’ll easily go through tens of different terms before you settle on that perfect one, while other times nothing will seem good enough. In that case, Thesaurus.com can be the secret weapon in your arsenal.
The site will help you find synonyms and also provide quick definitions to help you not to make a silly mistake by building your domain name around a word with a meaning you’ve misunderstood.
Note: As I mentioned above, it’s not advisable to just go with a standard, dictionary word as your domain name, even if it comes from a thesaurus. Always add some modifiers to it, or turn it into something original by changing a few letters here and there.
9. Help Yourself to Some Domain Name Generators
Well yes you are going to build your own domain name for a website, but realistically why waste a lot of time thinking? There are websites that help you build your own good domain name. And this is another kind of helper that you can use if you’re finding it hard to come up with a cool domain name, and thus, by extension, your business name as well.
These tools are very simple to use, but also surprisingly helpful. All they need is one keyword from you, all they need is a seed keyword (or a seed key-phrase), and, in return, they give you tens or even hundreds of suggestions, full of valid and available domain names that you can register right away. As such it is always good to remember not to rely too much on these websites as well, always try to think about your name and have an idea before you approach these helpers. This way you can get what you want and the maximum out of your time.?
10. Choose a Domain Name You Can Actually Legally Own
Infringing on a trademark can mean a really bad day. And, while I realize hardly anyone registers a domain name with the intent to infringe on anything, those things do happen every once in a while. You may never think of this but if your website succeeds and becomes successful and for your bad luck your infringing another brand, well you have a chance of losing everything all at once
Therefore, as a rule of thumb, whenever you have a nice domain name idea and you’re just about to register it, simply google the name and look through all of the first and second-page results. What you’re looking for are businesses that already use this name and (seemingly) operate in a similar market or niche. And by chance If you find anything, hit next and think of a different name at once!
11. Stop worrying of your domain name is taken
If the domain name you really desire is already taken, this is not the end of the world. Sometimes, you can actually still get your hands on it. Here’s what you can do: If the domain name is not in use (there’s no website or the domain is ‘parked’ — features only ads), then there’s a very good chance the owner only bought it to sell it later on. You’ll likely find some contact information on that parked website. If there’s no info, use who.is and get the owner’s email.
If there’s a website on the domain, you can still try your luck and contact the owner asking if they’re willing to sell the domain off. Low chance of success here, but still worth a try. If the domain is completely empty and there’s no contact info to be found, try looking through known domain-flipping marketplaces, such as GoDaddy’s marketplace (auction based), Sedo, SnapNames, or Flippa. Buying an existing domain name is a different process from buying a new one, so it requires some additional caution.?
12. Stop worrying if you perfect domain name can be taken or even purchased
Okay, so as much as domain names do matter, and having the right one can mean the world to you, if you can’t get your hands on what you want (it’s unavailable or the price is too high), don’t worry too much about it..
First of all, something that’s more important than anything else is to actually get the idea behind your website or business right. If you dedicate yourself to executing that idea and do it deliberately, the lack of that ‘perfect domain name’ won’t hold you back. Secondly, domain names can be changed later on. Even if you don’t have the right domain today, you can always get it later, and then just redirect your website to it.?
Thus, you do not have to worry too much about it, do not confine yourself to your perfect domain name, and as mentioned if you do follow the steps thoroughly you wouldn't fall into this scenario. Bottom line is be creative and find a different name for your domain, at least for the time being.
13. Be Careful When Buying Existing Domain Names
As I mentioned a couple of points above, buying an existing domain name is a bit different from buying a new one. First of all, since it’s not new, this means it already has a history. And you can never be entirely sure what that history is. On the bright side, the domain’s history may give you a boost in Google since you’re not starting from scratch because Google already knows the domain and the algorithm recognizes it.?
But, on the flip side, if the domain has featured any kind of ‘non-kosher’ stuff (porn, gambling, spam content, email spam distribution), then it may be banned from Google entirely. Buying your domain from a marketplace such as Flippa gives you some safety, since every domain is validated at least in the most basic way. However, to make things a bit safer, you should also perform checks of your own.
This will tell you whether Google has any pages indexed from that domain. Finding anything is a good sign. It means the domain isn’t banned. Not finding anything doesn’t have to be a deal-breaker, though. Anyhow this leads us to the next point.
14. Check the Domain History via Wayback Machine
Note: This one is worth checking even if you’re getting (what you think is) a new domain name. In some cases, the domain name you’re trying to register may have been registered in the past but then abandoned by the owner. It’s still good to have a look at what was on it.
There are a couple of ways in which you can look up a domain name’s history. One of the more popular ones, and one that’s also within anyone’s reach (read: Not too technical), involves Wayback Machine.
This is one of the first tools of its kind. Quite simply, it lets you enter a time machine, so to speak, and have a look at how any website used to look in the past.
When I say ‘any website’, it’s not actually any website. But you can expect to find most websites that had any noticeable traffic at any point in time. In our case, doing a check via Wayback Machine allows us to see whether the domain we’re interested in has ever been used for anything significant, and, if so, whether it was all ‘kosher’ or not.
Do not forget to check the rest of the points in part 03 of this article. In the meantime we hope this article and the points stated above helped you in? any way to make your perfect domain name choice. You can also read similar articles from our main blog page which is www.earltech.biz (see its biz not .com). Catch you in the next article