August 9th, 2010 by Mike

If you have a site that you’re ready to launch, the chances are that you’ve put a lot of effort into making it as useful, attractive and efficient as possible. If you’ve employed the services of a good search engine optimisation company the website will be ready and able to start handling a lot of traffic and bringing you all-important clients. But how much thought have you really put into your domain name? If you’ve been advised well by an SEO company and have also used a lot of common sense, then you’ve thought about it a great deal. The domain name is a critical part of the website when it comes to SEO. Changing it later could have a devastating impact on where you rank on the search engine results pages. Choosing is not a simple and straightforward process by any means, when so much depends on what you decide and so much needs to be taken into consideration.

Here are some tips on what you should think about carefully when choosing a domain name. It’s not comprehensive but we hope it will help those of you starting out.

1. Things to avoid. Here are some pitfalls to watch out for:

•    Don’t feature the same letter consecutively at the end of one word and the beginning of the next in your domain name. Think about the name ‘musicclass.com’, for example. If you chose this as a domain name you’d probably find yourself losing users to a site called ‘musiclass.com.’

•    You should avoid having a name that’s too long, for example – thisnamewon’tberememberedbymanypeople.com.

•    Do not take the easy route of choosing a title that’s similar to a successful one that exists already. Changing one letter or making your domain name virtually the same as one that exists invites legal action and makes you look cheap.

•    Avoid substituting letters for numbers. Having a domain name with numbers used instead of letters, for example 6eautiful.com, is unlikely to bring users to your website since few will have typed that into a query box.

•    Avoid ‘cutting up’ words to join them and create a made up word. ‘Classical Music Store’ transformed into ‘Clamust’ for example not only looks bad, but it will not bring you traffic.

2. Is it true that the domain has parasitical value? When SEO services advise you to think about parasitical value they’re telling you to think about your market as a pre-existing ‘pie’ you can claim a portion of through taking notice of queries from users. Look at the more obscure searches that are being conducted. If you can examine what’s being searched for already and steer your content toward catering for it, you’ll benefit. If you can provide useful information within your website’s general objectives, you’ll find that traffic is steered toward your site. With that comes an improvement in your ranking on results pages. It’s better to avoid terms which too many websites already compete for and it’s always useful to remember that good SEO means keeping your pages relevant.

3. Make it catchy. It’s very important to have a domain name that will stay in people’s minds. To this end it really needs to be relatively short, appropriate to your product or service and effective. Effective domain names are those that come to our minds as a direct association of a product or service. As an example of the benefits of choosing a catchy domain name, we might consider some of the potential benefits of social media marketing. If you want to get your site and content out into the public realm, there aren’t many better ways than employing some social media optimization techniques. To be an effective presence on websites such as Facebook and Twitter your brand needs to be instantly recognizable. The domain name should represent the identity of the product and act like an attractive door for users to pass through in order to get to you.

In conclusion, make sure you’re satisfied with your domain name before it’s made official. Remember, you could lose out by changing it after the website’s up and running. Make sure you’re happy with it and that it’s going to work well for you. Think of it as the sign above your door. Most shops want a polished sign and a steady stream of valued customers, and so do you! Make it one that will stand the test of time.

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