Selecting the best domain name for your new website is often the task that new website clients tackle first. Since there are a nearly infinite number of possible website domain names to choose from, how does a prospective website client go about choosing just the right domain name for his or her small business website or personal project?

There are three general strategies to consider when selecting a domain name for a new website:

1. using keywords,
2. using branding, and
3. using something easy to remember.

When you select to use keywords in your domain name, you are doing it for search engine optimization purposes. You get “credit” with search engines for every keyword that appears in your website, and the domain name carries quite a bit of weight. If for example you are a dog trainer in Seattle, you might want “seattledogtraining.com ” as your domain name so that folks who are using those three words find your website.

When you select to use branding in your domain name, you are trying to establish some kind of identity online, like “yourcompanyname.com” . With this strategy, it’s assumed that people will find your website because they either know the domain name by heart (aka Amazon.com) or because you’ve done marketing to get your company’s domain name known to potential customers.

When you select something easy to remember in your domain name, you are using neither keywords nor your company name, but often a clever, short, memorable domain name like “zippydogs.com” for a business that has nothing to do with dogs. (If you don’t believe me, check out their website!)

You can also come up with a combination strategy, like I did for my domain “AldebaranWebDesign.com”, using both my business name and two keywords that are super-relevant to my business. There are great websites that help you choose a domain name, and I’d recommend using domain.com to help come up with alternatives you might not have otherwise thought of. But since I often recommend using DreamHost to new website clients, and DreamHost will give you a domain registration for free with a hosting plan, I advise folks to just use domain.com for brainstorming purposes only.

You may be asking, “Why is this choosing a domain name such a big deal when they only cost $10 a year? “. This is a great question! Domain name registrations are certainly inexpensive, and probably deceptively so, from a search engine optimization (SEO) perspective. There are many, many different factors that search engines like Google consider when their super complex algorithm assigns your website ranking for specific keywords. The factor that matters  in considering selecting a domain name, is domain age. When you register a domain name, it gets time stamped, and the search engines know how long you’ve had it. Some people claim that the longer you register your domain name for, the better, implying that you should pre-pay for your domain name for 10 years versus 1 year.

Some of the search engines, like MSN don’t care about domain age, but Google does. In an effort to have new fly-by-night websites get lower rankings than established websites, Google uses something known as the “Google Sandbox”. The sandbox is where Google sends your “new” website (domain name) to play until it ages enough to play with the older websites. I can tell you from personal experience with my own website that this happens, and there’s no telling how long new websites will be in the sandbox - it depends on what keywords you’re trying to get ranking for. For example, for my own website, I got good ranking for my last name, which is unusual, within a month or two. But for “website design seattle” I had to wait 8 months to emerge from the sandbox.

Here’s my point: select your domain name carefully, because changing it after your website is well established will be extremely detrimental to your website traffic. Your new domain name will go straight into the Google sandbox for many, many months. Again I speak from experience as I recently changed my domain name from “AldebaranConsultingSeattle.com” to “AldebaranWebDesign.com”. Very painful, believe me. Read about my own experience with changing my domain name while attempting to keep my search engine rankings high.

Try not to just select a domain name that’s something quick and easy because domain names are only $10/year. Put some time and thought into selecting your domain name and you’ll be much happier in the long run!

StumbleUpon   del.icio.us    Digg It   Facebook   Technorati   

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 28th, 2007 at 8:33 pm and is filed under the 1st Steps category. Read other Aldebaran Website Design Blog articles by returning to main blog page. Need a blog added to your website? Click here to read about blog installation services or click here to contact Aldebaran Web Design.