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WAHM > How to Start an Internet Business > Choosing a Domain Name

Choosing a Domain Name

Your domain name should be descriptive of your business and easy for people to remember.

Take the time to carefully consider your domain name and find one that will serve your purpose for the long term.

Why Should You Register Your Own Domain Name?

Be sure to register your own domain name when you start a web site.

You can use a web address that your Internet server provides you, but a domain of your own is far more professional.

Besides, what if your Internet provider goes out of business? You lose your domain, email address and all the customers and search engines that knew where to find you.

It is worth spending a bit of money registering your own domain and paying to have it hosted. You will also receive email addresses that contain your domain name; this looks very professional and is a great advertisement for your site.

Make your domain name something easy for people to remember and not too complicated. It should be something people can type into their browser by memory.

Choosing a Domain Name for Search Engines

Currently, search engines place considerable weight to a domain name in regard to keywords. Therefore, using descriptive domain names like the above can help in achieving good rankings. In addition, placing hyphens between the words of your domain name can help search engines distinguish between the words in your domain.

However, there is a balance between Search Engine Optimization & confusing your customers!

Don't make your domain name so long, people can't remember it. If you do decide to hyphenate your domain name, buy the same version of the domain name without hyphens, in case your customers forget the hyphens. Simply forward the name without hyphens to the name with hyphens.

For example: We sell blue dog ornaments (this is purely hypothetical - We don't know how popular the term is!)

I would buy blue-dog-ornaments.com and host my website on that domain. This helps search engines distinguish between the words.

I would also buy bluedogornaments.com and forward it to the above domain. That way, if my customers forget the hyphens, they can still find my site.

In addition to purchasing the hypenated and non-hyphenated versions of your domain name you may also want to purchase the various top level domains (.com, .net, .biz, .us) in order to protect your domain name.

Resource: InternetBasedMoms.com Domains and Hosting: purchase domain names from $7.85 / year.

Next in our tutorial: --> Choosing a Web Host

Further Reading --- > Canada Domain Registry