How to choose a good Domain Name for your Site?

One of the most important things any site owner or blogger must look at is the domain name. Many newbies and sometimes even those who have been online for sometime make the mistake of choosing domain names without much thought.

A good top level domain names helps SEO in a big way. It tells not just search engines, but also the users, what the site or blog is all about. It’s very easy to connect to users with a word or two that is top of mind and they can easily relate to.

When you say astrology.com, you know that the site will offer horoscope readings, compatibility reports, psychic readings, star signs forecasts etc. If you see a domain golfaccessories.com, you instantly recognize that they sell golf accessories. You see the point why a simple easy-to-understand domain name is critical to SEO and users.

Key SEO Tip

The http://www.webmasters.org/ domain name fetched $50,000 in July 2008. This site had just 3,800 unique visitors a month was earning a mere $25 a month. The value was for the domain name only. Shows how high a value one can get for a good domain name.

If it was www.xyz.com, a user will have no clue as to the content or service offered by the site or blog.

My Simple Branding Philosophy

Not all of us have deep pockets to choose a non-dictionary name and spend on marketing to build the brand. It’s wiser to choose a name that exists in the people’s minds and use it as a site’s name. Instant recognition. No effort effort required.

If you want to run a baby names site, you should look for babynames.com. If you are blogging on pregnancy, you should first look for names with the word pregnancy. Examples of good domains would be pregnancy.com, earlypregnancy.com, pregnancystages.com, pregnancytips.com, pregnancyguide.com etc. While dot.com is preferred, .org, .info, .net, .biz are also good (and of course country extensions).

When people search, search engines like google, yahoo, msn or ask show about 10 results on a page. Apart from the title and the brief on a results page, users tend to evaluate the link to click based on the domain name. If one searched for “cancer symptoms” and found a result whose domain was “ultraxgames.com/cancerguide”, chances are that users will mistrust a gaming site that shows a page for cancer tips.

Choose a site name with core words that go with the theme of your site or blog. If you plan to offer “tips for handling obesity”, then you should look at words like weight loss, fat, obese, health, obesity, overweight, and use a combination of these words with guide, tips, surgery, cure, remedies, wellness, diet, recipes etc to find a good top level name for your website or blog.

I hope these simple domain name SEO selection tips was useful.