Choose an appropriate domain name
An effective domain name is one that is easily recognizable with the company or the product featured on the website.
You must think about the purpose of your website, what is its primary function? If the website is going to be your company’s website choose a domain name that is as close to the name of your company as you can.
If your website is promoting a product you should try and choose a name close to the product name or suggestive of the product.
If your website will be a squeeze page ( a page designed to get visitors to opt-in and supply their email address or contact details) or a sales letter page, you should consider how you are going to promote the site and select a domain name closely associated with your marketing or promotion strategy.
Offer a service or solution
Many customers have a problem and are searching for the solution, your product or service may be just what they are looking for but they don’t know it exists.
So another strategy for choosing an effective domain name is to have a name that describes a solution to a problem, or a way to solve a problem, or describes the service you provide.
Incorporate keywords into your domain name
Think of the words a customer may type into a search engine to find your business; they could be words that describe your products, your industry, the problems, or solutions mentioned above.
You may want to ask your friends and family what terms they would use to find your website, product or service.
Keep it short and sweet
Domain names can be as long as 67 characters but you will not find many customers who will be able to remember or willing to type a domain name of this length, it will not be an effective domain name.
Try and keep your domain name short and as memorable as possible, returning customers will want to be able to remember and be able to spell it, not have to keep looking it up in a search engine.
Register your name as a domain name
You may not want to use it as your primary domain name, but registering your name as a domain name that you can redirect to your main website does have its advantages, and can be a very effective domain name strategy.
Customers who cannot remember your company name may remember your name. You may also want to consider purchasing common misspellings of your name and direct these back to your main website too.
Dot Com is king
People naturally think .COM when they think about domain names, even though your site and your marketing all clearly states dot something else e.g. .ORG, .BIZ .NET you will find that people will type and even refer to your domain as .COM.
If the .COM domain name you want is not available try hyphenating it, it has been reported by SEO specialists that search engines like hyphenated names.
Many online businesses now use hyphens in their domain names for this reason.
Variety can be the spice of internet life
Purchasing other versions of your primary domain name can be a very good business strategy as you will not only be able to redirect these pages back to your main website but you will ensure that your competitors will not be able to register them and trade off your domain.
Don’t go overboard however as registering domain names can be quite costly and you do not want to bankrupt your company because you own every possible variation of your domain name.
Your domain name is your portal to the internet and all of the possibilities it contains for your business.
Think carefully and make some plans when choosing your domain name as you want to choose an effective domain name that will serve you now and continue to draw customers to your business in the future.