Find Out Why Domain Names Are Such An Important Part Of Your Business And How To Choose Them!
Domain Names
There is a saying “What’s In A Name“. Your Domain Name is one of the most important components of you Online Business. It is the identity of your business. It can signify you as a brand. With myself I managed to secure the domain name www.pete-harris.com. That is me, that is my brand.
Some people shy away from using hyphens within the domain name. Sometimes you have no choice, I would have preferred peteharris.com but it had already been taken so for me putting the hyphen in was not an issue. It was the next best alternative and the nearest thing I could get. If it is your aim to build yourself as a brand and become an authority within your chosen niche then I would encourage you to use your name within the domain name.
If you are entering a specific niche, and for this example we use the golf tuition niche, your domain name needs to reflect the niche. In this case Golf is the niche so I would go with something like golftips.com. If you supply hairdressing salons with shampoo you would be advised to try to get something like hairdressingsupplies.com. Hopefully you get the idea.
Domain Names Extensions
The extension part of the domain name is the .co. It is always advised that if the .com is available then make sure you get that. It is recognised globally, they are the most renowned and the most prominent. However there is nothing wrong with .org, .net, .info or a specific countries extension. I live in the United Kingdom so the extension is .co.uk. So lets just say that I was solely targeting the UK market for golf tuition, it would be in my opinion better to get golftips.co.uk because it would appear more prominently in the UK serach listings. I hope you get the logic in my thinking.
Ultimately you must have a domain name to have an online presence. Your domain name is your address on the internet. It is the address of your website and your website is a piece of virtual real estate and your business asset. One other tip is to try and keep it as short as possible so it make it easier for anyoby to type it into the address bar.
Now I would like to talk about how to actually choose your domain name. When people type into Google a specific term, and again I will use golf instruction for example, that term is know as a keyword. We can use a free tool called Google Keyword Planner.
This screen shot show the main keyword is “golf instruction“. In the list of results you will notice that the first listed search term is “golf tips” and has a monthly search of 22,200. This means that throughout the world there is on average 22,200 people per month searching for that exact keyword.
Now do you think that if you were to set up a website aound the golf instruction niche, and used the term “golf tips“, and then were to fill it with relevant content you would get good website traffic?. You bet you would.
What we will now do is to go over to another free tool called Domain Typer. As you can see from the screen shot I have entered the term golf tips and there is nothing available.
Now look what happens in the next screen shot when I put a hyphen in the term. As you can see .co is available.
Now we will go over to a website where I buy all my domain names. GoDaddy.
In this screen shot I have entered the term “golf-tips.co” and it is showing that the domain name is available and the cost is £6.99 per year. That is all that it costs to have your identity on the internet. What you would do then is to carry on and purchase the domain and would be yours for as long you keep renewing it.
This is the process that I personally use to reasearch and purchase all my domain name and it has served me very well.
Domain Names – The Key Points
- They Are The Identity Of You And Your Business
- Get A .Com If Possible
- Use Google Keyword Planner For Research
- Use Domain Typer To See If The Domain Is Avalable
- Purchase The Domain Name
It is quite a simple process, some people try to complicate it, I don’t know why it does’nt need to be.
Please look out for post about website hosting where I will try to explain just what you do with the domain name once you have purcchased.
Once again I hope that you have enjoyed my words of wisdom, I have really enjoyed writing it for you.
As always I wish you well.
Pete Harris
Digital Marketer & Home Business Consultant
Six Figure Mentors Elite
Pete Harris – Domain Names – Top
Acknowledgements
WWW Image – Image courtesy of dan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net Domains On Screen – Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net Globe And Domain Com – Image courtesy of cooldesign / FreeDigitalPhotos.net