Tips for Choosing a Good Domain Name

Coming up with a name for your website is sometimes a very exciting thing to do. But how do you know if you’ve come up with a good name or a poor name? Well, in the end only time will tell how the site does, but let’s help you get started on the right foot by giving you some guidelines of what to do.

One thing I should mention here is that a lot of people will choose their name before they even know what their product or topic of the website is. That would be doing things backwards. In order to come up with an effective name, you need to know what the product is first! Otherwise you might come up with a very generic name that doesn’t really reflect what your website is all about. So do things in the right order and save yourself some headache.

Ok, so let’s get started with some of the general guidelines for coming up with a good domain name:

1. Keep the name related to the topic of the site
You don’t really need to come up with some new crazy word that will be your big name. Instead, keep it obvious so that people can very easily associate your website with the topic. If possible, its not a bad idea at all to get one of your main keyword phrases into the domain name. Doing this doesn’t guarantee you a higher search engine ranking, but it does help.

2. Keep the name short
Shoot for three words or less. A name like “DansGreatSiteOfSofas.com” meets the criteria for guideline number one, but it’s a little lengthy for a domain name. (Yes, I realize this is an extreme example )

3. Don’t use hyphens in the name
There are some good reasons to use hyphens in a domain name, but if you’re doing a basic e-commerce site I don’t really recommend it. I’ve heard some people say that it helps the search engines to see the different words of the name, but they’re really smart enough to figure it out. The standard for years now has been to just put the words of the domain name together with no separation. Let’s stick with that standard.

4. Get the .com
If you want to get the .net, .info, and/or .biz with the .com, that’s up to you. The .com is the most common extension, so it’s the one we want to make sure that we can get. If the .com is already taken, just cross that idea off your list and get something else.

So those are your basic guidelines for coming up with a domain name. What you want to do is come up with 15-20 different names and then check the availability all at once. Remember that probably about 80% of your name ideas are already taken. So if you come up with a large list of good names, you’re just more likely to end up with one that you actually like. You can check the availability at GoDaddy, 1&1, or any other domain name registration site. Shop around and find a good price, then go for it!

In the next post I’ll go over another tool that can help you come up with names if you get stuck.

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