Articles > How, Why and Where to Buy Effective Domain Names For Your Business

How, Why and Where to Buy Effective Domain Names For Your Business

- by Andrea Wilson

What You Will Learn

• why you need a domain name
• why the right domain name is important to your business
• how to choose the most effective domain name for your business
• how to choose the best variations of your domain name (even
  if you already own a domain name)
• where to buy a domain name
• domain name terminology.

Why Buy a Domain Name?

A memorable domain name is a valuable asset for your business. It will allow people to find your Web site more easily, but more importantly, it establishes you as a serious business owner, not a starving wannabe or even a shady character!

I am always dismayed to see small businesses trying to establish themselves online with domain names that obviously came with a free hosting account. They have URL's like http://www.geocities.com/seattletowing or http://members.shaw.ca/giftbaskets. URL's like these immediately mark these businesses as "struggling, not likely to survive."

If this is you, please go and buy a good domain name right away! People like to do business with companies they believe are successful. On the Web, you can look successful quite easily. That's how most of us started online. We looked successful long before we became successful, and nobody was any the wiser.

Probably the cheapest thing you will buy for your business is its domain name! Please don't try to save $5.99 USD a year by using the URL provided by a free hosting account.

IMPORTANT: People think that, because they are using free hosting space on their local ISP, they can't use their own domain name. This is not true! A domain name can be parked with the registrar and pointed at any other domain name, URL or IP address on the Internet.

Tip: Domain names are bought from domain name "registrars." Later in this article I will tell you which registrars sell ultra-cheap domain names.

What's in a Name?

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet." - William Shakespeare

Unfortunately, it's not that simple when it comes to domain names. If you could choose any old domain name and have your Web site "smell as sweet," there wouldn't be people buying and selling domain names for thousands of dollars, as though they were commodities on the Stock Exchange!

So, how do you choose the right domain name?

Let's pretend our business is called Smith & Sons Towing Company and we're located in Seattle, Washington, USA.

1. Always buy your full company/business name, if you can. The "&" sign cannot be used in domain names. We need to replace it with "and," so we'll buy www.smithandsonstowingcompany.com.

2. Then buy the nickname or short version you usually go by. In our case, www.smithandsonstowing.com. If we can get www.smithandsons.com, we will buy that, too, but it's not likely we'll find that still available.

Tip: Buy whatever versions of your company name that you can find as a .com. Don't worry about any other extensions like .net or .org. If you can't find your business name as a .com, then look for your country extension. Example: www.smithandsonstowing.ca, www.smithandsonstowing.co.uk.

If you are a charity, you can also buy the .org version. If you are a telecommunications company, you can also buy the .net version. Forget any other extensions like .biz, .info, etc.

If you can ONLY get the .org or .net versions of your company name, buy them, but be aware that this is not the best choice. Everyone types .com at the end of a domain name automatically. In our hypothetical case, customers may end up at a dead end or on someone else's Web site if they type in www.smithandsonstowing.COM and we bought www.smithandsonstowing.NET!

3. Buy keyword-rich domain names. In addition to buying our company name, we need to help people find our Web site when they don't know our business by name. One good option is to buy some keyword-rich domain names like www.seattletowingcompany.com and www.seattle-towing-company.com. If we buy both versions we can keep the competition from buying a similar domain name to ours. Also, search engines will read the version with hyphens as separate words, which will help drive traffic to our Web site.

But first, to find the best keyword-rich domain names we need to know what people are using to search for companies like ours. A free tool to use to locate this information is called GoodKeywords and can be downloaded from http://www.goodkeywords.com. This tool checks the Yahoo/Overture directory for recent searches. You can also access this same information online at http://inventory.overture.com.

When we do a search on "towing," we get too many generic terms and too many other cities. When we do a search on "seattle towing," we see that the top number of searches are actually for "towing seattle." If we can scoop the domain names www.towingseattle.com and www.towing-seattle.com, we've done our business a great service. If we can't, we'll try to keep the same word order, but buy a longer domain name, like www.a1-towing-seattle.com or www.aaa-towing-seattle.com.

4. Buy domain names that come near the beginning of the alphabet. Why would we choose "A1" or "AAA," instead of "fast," "best," "cheap," etc. as the first word in our keyword-rich domain name? Because, if we have the choice, we should try to get a domain name that falls as close to the beginning of the alphabet as possible. A1 and AAA both mean "best," but they put us at the top of any towing directory online, whereas, "best" does not.

So, although www.a1-towing-seattle.com is our second best choice, it ain't half bad!

Tip: If your domain name doesn't start with an "A," buy one that does. Then use your "A" domain name as your business name for any online directories you advertise in. This will put you at the top of the list alphabetically. If you are about to buy a business name, think about finding a name that starts with "A." Notice my business name is Able Webs and my domain name is www.ablewebs.com. This has served me well!

5. Buy the plural or singular of words in your domain name that people are likely to type incorrectly. Learn from my mistake! When I bought my domain name (www.ableWEBS.com), I didn't buy the version www.ableWEB.com. Now someone else owns that domain name and I am probably losing business to them. So, if your company name is Adventure Cruise Company and your short domain name is www.adventureCRUISE.com, also buy www.adventureCRUISES.com!

6. Avoid cute spelling in your domain name. Example: If your company name is Logic Computer Company, don't spell "logic" with a zero instead of an "oh" in your domain name. If you cannot get your actual company name, choose a keyword-rich domain name instead.

7. Avoid odd hyphenation. Hyphenate all or none of the words in your domain name (buy both versions). In our case, www.a1towingseattle.com and www.a1-towing-seattle.com are both better domain names than www.a1-towingseattle.com. The only reason to buy domain names with odd hyphenation would be to keep the competition from buying them.

8. Look for short, memorable domain names. Short domain names are scarce, but not impossible to find. People will remember a short domain name better and they will make fewer mistakes when typing it. For instance, www.ablewebs.com is better than www.ablewebswebdesigncompany.com (yikes!). (Tip: Visually, a long domain name is better when hyphenated: www.able-webs-web-design-company.com. If I had to buy a long domain name, I would buy it with and without hyphens, and I would use the hyphenated version on my business cards, letterhead, advertising, etc.)

9. Capitalize the first letter of each word when you put your URL on any advertising media, including your email signature, classified ads, business cards, letterhead, etc. Example: www.A1TowingSeattle.com is easier to read than www.a1towingseattle.com.

10. Buy misspellings of your company name or keywords. For instance, if your company name is Debra's Doughnuts, try to buy www.deborahsdoughnuts.com, www.debrasdonuts.com, etc. to cover all possible spellings of Debra and doughnuts.

Where Do I Buy My Domain Names?

Cheap Domain Names

To register a .com domain name, go to http://www.1and1.com. You can get domain names there for $5.99 USD per year! My personal favourite registrar is GoDaddy.com (http://www.godaddy.com). Domains are sometimes on sale there for $7.95 USD per year, but the regular price is $8.95 USD. I like GoDaddy because their interface is very easy to use.

Country-specific Domain Names

Search online for "domain names [your country]," e.g., "domain names canada." Then look for the lowest price. As I write this, Netfirms has Canadian domain names for $9.95 CAD per year. Here's their URL: http://www.netfirms.ca/domain-names/b/131.

Tip: Don't automatically use the domain name registrar as your
hosting company! Instead, do your homework and locate a hosting
company with good customer service and a full complement of
features included in their basic service.

Quality Hosting at Gate.com - 99.9% up time means no lost business. High quality, very reasonably priced hosting - includes $1.00 domain. Other nice freebies included with new accounts! Get 2 months Free when Buying an Annual Hosting Package at Gate.com

Here are some other hosting services. They're all good.

• HostGator
• Host4Profit
• 1and1.com
• IXHosting.com

What Do I Do With All These Domain Names?

Domain names can be "parked" free at most registrars and forwarded to your main domain name.

Check your registrar for the option called "Forwarding." Both 1and1.com and GoDaddy.com offer this service free of charge. This is an important option!

Later you will redirect all your secondary domain names to your actual Web site (main domain name). For example, if we use www.smithandsonstowing.com as our actual domain name, we will point www.a1-towing-seattle.com at it. If we prefer, we can even mask the parked domain name so that anyone using it will only see www.smithandsonstowing.com. They won't see www.a1-towing-seattle.com at all once they arrive on our site.

Domain names are cheap. Use the rules above to buy the right domain names to protect your company name and your market niche online.

If you already own a domain name, make sure you have read this article thoroughly so you can go and buy the proper variations.

Glossary

What is a Domain Name?

A domain name is part of a Web site's Internet address (URL). It gives human beings an easy way to locate a particular Web site on the World Wide Web. Otherwise, we would have to type in actual IP (Internet Protocol) addresses like 123.100.56.1. Try remembering a few of those and see how far you get! Domain names are much easier to remember and to type correctly.

What is an IP Address?

An IP (Internet Protocol) address is a set of four numbers separated by periods (e.g., 123.100.56.1). It identifies an Internet server's exact location on the Web. (An Internet server is a computer on which one or many Web sites reside.)

What is a URL?

URL is an acronym for U(niform) R(esource) L(ocator). It's pronounced U.R.L., not "earl"! A URL is an Internet address (for example, http://www.a1-towing-seattle.com/contact-us.htm), usually consisting of the access protocol (http), the domain name (www.a1-towing-seattle.com), and optionally the path to a file residing on that server (contact-us.htm).

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