Your domain name is a critical part of your overall success. A lot of thought should go into the choice because that’s what you’ll be using forever. It becomes the name of your website and there are many factors that must be considered when choosing a domain name.
Your domain name should be relevant to your business. E.g. don’t choose fishingsupplies.com if your site is about writing poetry. Choose something that isn’t too long and is easy to remember. Don’t use abbreviations because they won’t make sense. Your domain name forms part of your brand when you advertise your website.
Keywords in your domain name make it easier to find when people do searches. Naturally it will take time and hard work to get your site onto the first page of Google but that’s something to work on as part of your overall marketing strategy.
Unless your site is supposed to be funny, don’t choose a ridiculous domain name because it will reflect badly on you. Many people use their full name. E.g. www.johnsmith.com although obviously if there are a lot of John Smiths, you may have to choose something a little more distinctive.
Choosing the ending is also vital. The most commonly used one is dot com. However, there are a lot of other options as well. You have dot net, dot org, dot info and also endings that relate to each country such as dot com dot au (Australia) or dot com dot uk (United Kingdom). You can have more than one.
In fact many people choose the dot com version and also their own country’s option to avoid someone else grabbing that and potentially stealing customers. You can simply point the country option to the dot com site so that you use both options to best advantage for the same site.
These are just the very basic reasons why the right domain name is so important. Further posts will give you more information to help you make the best decision.
