Choosing a domain name

Choosing a domain name

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Choosing the right domain name is an important starting place for any website project, Using our experience in this field we have written some tips to help you make the right decision.

Planning

Before you pick a domain, there are a few factors that should be taken into consideration. These are based around your niche, target audience and brand.

The good news is that you can pick almost any domain name related to your idea. The bad news is that so can anyone else, and as such picking a short and catching domain can be prove difficult.

So let’s ask some questions

1. What type of website are you planning to host and what content will it contain?
2. What is the niche market and audience? How are you going to find them and why?
3. Have you done market research and found SEO friendly keywords? Can they be used in the URL?
4. Plan for the long run, is this a niche that’s developing and can you grab a domain related to its development?
5. View other variations of the domain and see if there’s any similar competition using those words.

Although this sounds like a lot of effort, researching and acquiring the right domain name will have an effect on both your brand awareness and search engine ranking.

You’re going to be investing your time and effort into a possible brand and project which needs to be short, punchy and informative; but at the same time not generic.

Generic domain names can cause your brand to struggle under the weight of SEO. Look at some of the major brands out there – Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, BuzzFeed etc.

They’re all using very unique brand names.

The unofficial, official guidelines

  • Stick with the common domain extensions such as .com, .co.uk, or .net if at all possible. Anything more obscure (although it may be tempting) may well suffer from a lower achievable search engine ranking, not to mention be less memorable for to your visitors. We include a domain name of your choice in our £35 per year unlimited hosting package.
  • Make sure the domain is easy to spell and not ambiguous. For example, not everyone can distinguish between principal and principle correctly.
  • Try to avoid using other brand names in your domain. If you’re unsure, ask a friend over the phone to tell you how they would spell or find it. If you need to thoroughly explain it, it’s probably better to go back to the drawing board.

So you’ve found a great domain, but how do you create a great site?

You are free to use any of the supportive tools that come included with your hosting account, including CMS platforms such as Wordpress, Magento, Joomla and OSCommerce.

You don’t need to invest thousands into a website to make it successful. With a bit of research and support, you can get one that’s just right.

Want a professional to build a website for you? Hastings Web Design