Choosing the right domain name for your business is the important first step in creating and effective online presence. Your domain name represents your brand and how customers will identify with you moving forward when visiting your website.
Picking the right domain name will give you many advantages, whereas picking the wrong domain name will create complications you don’t want or need.
Here is our list of the top 9 things to consider when choosing the perfect domain name for your business…
1. Make It Easy To Remember: Your domain name should be simple enough that when you tell a friend, colleague or customer what it is they’ll remember it long term. People’s attention spans are short so make sure it’s something they won’t forget in a day (or even a week) later.
2. The Shorter The Better: The longer the domain name is the more difficult it will be for people to type it out or look for it in search engines. You’re better off keeping it under 20 characters long or even shorter if possible.
3. Check It’s History: If your purchasing a previously owned domain name from an auction bee sure you check it’s history in Moz or other search records. A domain name with a sketchy history or spammy backlinks won’t show up well in Google or could be penalized down the road.
4. Include Your Desired Keywords: It you are trying to rank for certain keywords or phrases try to include these in your domain choice somewhere. As long as you don’t go overboard this will give you a better shot at ranking higher in Google and other search engines.
5. Avoid Dashes Or Underscores: Making your domain name easy to type is critical for usability reasons and to avoid annoying those who are trying to visit your website. Avoid dashes, underscores, symbols or anything else that will prevent customers entering your URL quickly.
6. Scoop Up Similar Choices: Once you’ve purchased your primary domain name try and grab every other available version of it as well. Along with .com you might want to buy the .org, .biz or .ca extensions as well. Copycats are all over the web and won’t think twice about trying to steal your thunder if given the chance.
7. Think Local: If priority number one is ranking highly in your own city or town factor this into your decision. For example if Bob’s Plumbers is based in Calgary the domain name bobsplumbingcalgary.com may work better than simply www.bobsplumbers.com.
8. Avoid Crazy Extensions – For your main URL you want to stick to a .com domain name only or for Canadian businesses .ca. Selecting something else like .biz, .org, or .pro will not be common knowledge to most web surfers and may result in them finding your competitors site first instead of yours.
9. Use A Reputable Domain Service – It’s probably wise to spend a few dollars extra and purchase your domain name from a reputable service provider as opposed to any bargain bin alternative. In the case of any technical issues you want to make sure tech support is available regularly and won’t disappear at the first sign of trouble.
Jeff Moyer – Advance Web Solutions Owner
Jeff is a web design, SEO and internet marketing professional based in Calgary, Canada. He has over 10 years experience in the digital marketing industry and has been featured in several high profile newspapers and online blogs. To contact Jeff regarding his services or with any other inquiries please get in touch with us through our main website.
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