by Mona Gallagher

Created on: January 02, 2008

Choosing a great domain name for your home business is essential for your brand, marketing, and Internet presence. Domain names should ideally identify the product(s) and be easily remembered. Long and complicated spellings are one avenue that should be avoided when you're considering a domain name.

Some people are wizards at selecting the right name, but it can be overwhelming for some of us as we consider all the possibilities. Sometimes, when you do find a perfect domain name, it's already taken and it's back to the drawing board. With a few tips, you might be able to swing the odds in your favor.

In choosing a domain name, the goal is to identify the product and make the domain name SEO. (Search engine optimized) Using SEO keywords in your domain name drives traffic to your website. For example, if you're selling jewelry made from gold or diamonds, inserting these key words into your metatag and search engine will drive potential customers to your site.

You domain name lends credibility to your business. Several web hosts provide free domain names but attach their host name to the URL. You need your own unique domain name. Go-Daddy is the largest domain name seller and their prices are reasonable. Their price is about $9.99 per year, but you can find lower prices on other sites.

Why do you need a unique domain name? Search engines typically pull up a number of URLs using keywords. If your domain name looks like a thousand other names, you could very well lose your traffic to another website.

Experts advice using a .com suffix if you live in the United States. It's conventional and people tend to remember it better than a .biz, .org, or .net suffixes. You should avoid using hyphens, but if you feel you must use them, buy a second domain of the same name without the hyphen for optimal traffic.

Are you only as good as Google says you are? Ranking in Google depends very highly on keywords. There are other parameters in play, but not even the experts can't decipher them all. However, Google offers a stats analysis that will provide information on your website that analyzes your traffic to help you reach more prospects.

Google is the most popular search engine, but you can capitalize on others like Yahoo also. Yahoo indexes query searches in alphabetical order, using numeric digits such as, 1 or 1st can put your domain name at the top of Yahoo search. However, avoid using 0 (zero) because it is easily confused with the alpha O in searches.

There are many considerations and choices in domain names. Choosing a domain name is not often easy for some of us, but using SEO words and an easily searchable domain name, can be highly effective in getting your brand on the map and drive traffic to your website. That's what a good domain name does for you. It puts you up front.

Source:

https://www.google.com/analytics/home/p rovision

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