Often people rush into the choice of a domain. They simply think of what they want, then do a search to see if it has already been taken.
At best, this process is done for a few names that they might like. However, the process should be given more thought than this, and there are a number of reasons for this.
The following are a few of the more important things you should consider.
Prefer to use a dot com extension
There are many extensions available today, and if the name you want is already taken as a dot com, you may choose the same name with different extensions that is available.
Two common examples are dot biz and dot net. There are problems with this. The first is that if the other company that owns the dot com is a much larger company, your website domain can get buried in the search results.
This will likely happen when a person enters the URL into a search box of a search engine without an extension. The search engine will place a higher priority to a website that gets a lot of traffic and is a domain that has been around for a long time versus your new domain.
You don’t want to rely heavily on people bookmarking your website
Although people have their favorite sites they will have bookmarked in their browser, there are many sites that they may not have saved, and this is likely to be true for a new site that has just been published.
You don’t want to be dependent upon a bookmark in order for a person to find your site a second time. In the beginning stages of your website or blog, you are not going to be placed high in search engine results, so you will want a person to come as close as possible to typing in your URL.
If they, in fact, type in your exact URL, then you will be the first in the search engine results. You need to focus on a URL that is easy to remember.
You can buy a domain
You never own a domain. All you ever do is pay a fee to have the exclusive right to use the name. Because of this, a domain has a limited life before your right to it expires.
This is usually a year or two, and then it reverts back to the public where someone else can buy the right to use it. There are people who wait for a domain to expire, and then register it, but this is only done so they can turn around and sell it for a profit.
If the domain you want is already taken, it may be that it is available for sale. If this is true, it is only a matter of deciding whether it is worth the price. Many domains for sale are reasonably priced while others are so expensive as to be laughable. Only you can decide what a domain is worth to you.
To sum up, you need to try and get a dot come extension and keep the domain name easy to remember. It should be related to the subject of your blog, or if it is an eCommerce site, then the products you are selling.
