Choosing Search Optimized Domain Names
Choosing a good domain name for your business website can be very hard but it is also essential to get it right, after all you want it to work for you. In this article I explore the many different aspects that you should be considering when deciding on a suitable domain name. I also take you through the steps I follow when choosing an appropriate domain name for my websites.
All things considered what we are trying to achieve is a website domain name that adequately describes your product or service, is broad enough to allow for some growth and scope in product or service, is simple enough for a person to recall and contains your most important keywords/phrases. From an Internet marketing perspective there are also considerations of company and product branding that may be brought into this specification. From an SEO perspective it may be better to use an older or established domain name that has been registered and known by the search engines for over a while, these tend to be rated more highly by Google in a respect point of view.
To do the following tasks, I like to have a couple of browser windows open and a spreadsheet program. It may be required that you signup and login to certain websites, but these are all well known and respectable websites and do this at your discretion.
1. Load up overture inventory keyword volume checker in your browser window. Type in your product name or service and submit. Copy the results across into your spreadsheet.
2. load WordTracker in your browser, either using the free trial account or if you have a normal account, login. Now using the wizard type in the same product or service you type in the previous step. Run through the wizard and again, highlight and copy your results across into a new space in the spreadsheet.
3. Load up Google Adwords in your browser. Navigate to tools->keyword tool and type in the same keyword we used in the previous two steps. Ensure use synonyms are checked. Copy all words across into selected keywords and click estimate search traffic. Copy all results into a new space on the spreadsheet.
4. Using the spreadsheet we should have three columns and what we are looking to do is this step is weed out all items that are unrelated or irrelevant by deleting them from the spreadsheet.
5. Sort the three lists by search volume. Working from the top down, highlighting and copying to a 4th space in the spreadsheet the highest searched on and most relevant phrases. Repeat these steps until you have the top 10-15 phrases and keywords.
6. Identify your target market. Are you customers searching for your product in your local region or are they open to World wide suppliers? Having identified this we should use this as the domain extension (.com, .co.uk, .com.au etc) in the next step
7. Using this basic list identified in step 5, you might be lucky and be in an industry with little or no competition, so what we do here is remove any white space in the phrases and input them directly into your favorite bulk domain name registering tool. Check them all and see if we are lucky to find one of these is still available for registration. If the highest searched on term you have identified is still available and this strongly relates to your product/service you should register it now. If none of these terms is available then try using a dash (-) between words and also try adding words to the domain, like “the” or “buy” to get as close to the highest searched on term that you possibly can. You can also try re-arranging the words in the sentence.
So, now you have your list of 10+ domain names for your website to choose from and you should feel quite confident that they are relevant to your product or service, contain highly search terms and are short in length. If you are in debate over which one to choose then always go for relevant and high searched terms first.
When you do a Google search or a Yahoo search you usually type in a couple of words that best describes what you are looking for. This way of searching is fast and easy and usually satisfies your desire to find that particular product.
When choosing the right domain name you want to make sure that it is keyword searchable by providing one or two keywords related to what you are offering on your website. In order to decide what domain name you can use you will need to do a search to figure out how to best name your website.
Deciding the two most important keywords that someone can use to describe the products you sell and then adding them in your domain name is the best way to figure it out. If you choose the most searchable words you can maximize the benefits from creating your own website.
You need to make sure that you only use words that describe your business and dont be misleading or else you will end up losing more business than you gain. You want to be unique and stand out in a crowd and the correct domain name can give you all of that and more.
Once you have chosen your domain name you will be able to market your website and create a huge clientele. Be upfront with your clients and you will reap the rewards. If you need help determining your domain name toss a few ideas out to your friends and see which one is preferred because chances are if they like them, your customers will too.
When you are choosing your domain name you will want to use keywords in your name that will help someone find your website easily by searching. When you include keywords in your domain name you are letting the name speak for your business.
Someone will know right away what you are offering just by the name. They can click on your website for details on the products that is offered on your site. Making your domain name keyword friendly can increase your chances of getting more business and increasing sales.
When a customer does not purchase something the first time they will probably return and possibly purchase the next time. In the future they know where they can find your site and what all it offers.
Keywords are very important when it comes to domain names and it will set you apart from other sites online that offer similar products that no one knows about because of the name. Before you get started using your name you need to make sure it is unique and not already out there.
You will need to do a search to see if someone else has already registered the domain name for their business. If the name you have chosen is not in use then you need to register it before someone else. If the domain name is already taken, you will need to choose an alternative domain name that will describe your business using keywords. Using keywords will increase your customers and your sales.
When it comes to search engine keywords, there are some that are potential gold mines that are being ignored. These are ones in which a word or phrase is accidentally misspelled. Usually, the search engine will link to results that contain the correct spelling, but it will still show any websites associated with the misspelled keyword. If one of these websites catches the eye of a surfer, they may visit it. This is why many webmasters will not only create websites around misspelled keywords but also pay money to bid on them in pay-per-click search engine advertisements.
But misspelled keywords can help in another venue of Internet marketing… one’s domain name. When a popular misspelled keyword is included in a domain name, the search engine bots will be more likely to notice the website. Granted, it won’t get listed with the properly spelled keyword, but even traffic from a misspelled keyword is better than nothing. A person will just have to decide whether they want their website to be branded with a domain name that has an improper spelling.
So, how exactly can a webmaster make such a determination when they are deciding on their domain name? Well, first they need to look at what their website is for. If they are just doing affiliate marketing or Adsense promotion, it doesn’t matter as much if their domain name is branded properly. This is because they are not promoting their own business. However, if they are using a website to promote a company, they will want to try to keep their domain name as professional as possible.
Secondly, a webmaster needs to see if there is profitability in a misspelled keyword. Even though a misspelled domain isn’t as harmful to a webmaster promoting affiliate sites, they don’t necessarily want to make it a first option, especially if the misspelled keyword in the domain name doesn’t get much traffic. To determine a misspelled keyword’s profitability, a person can look it up in a keyword analyzer. In fact, some paid keyword analyzers, (such as Word Tracker), even have features where a person can see which specific types of misspelled keywords are worth taking advantage of.
If a misspelled keyword fits both of these criteria, a webmaster may want to consider putting it in their domain name. From there they will need to decide if they want that keyword to be included in the content. If it is then there’s an even greater likelihood search engine bots will index the website according to the misspelled keyword. However, if it’s not there’s still a chance that the website could be indexed according to the correct keyword, though if this ranking is low, it may not be a preferable option.
The webmaster will ultimately have to decide whether their content still looks ‘professional’ with the misspelled keyword. Some words, (such as mesothelioma), are so hard to spell, that a person may not even notice improper versions of it. If this happens they won’t have any issues seeing it so many times in the content, since they didn’t really know how to spell it right themselves.
In conclusion, including a misspelled keyword in one’s domain name could be an excellent way to covertly get website traffic, at least if a webmaster knows what he or she is doing. If they don’t a misspelled domain name could cause a person to think negatively about a website.
For this reason webmasters must take caution in which misspelled keywords they choose for their domain names along with whether or not they continue to use it in their content.
