Choosing a domain name for your business can be an intimidating process. With a large portion of business interactions and commerce taking place online, a domain name is just as important as the name of the business itself. While some businesses with poorly chosen names do survive, for a small business that is trying to make its mark, a name can make or break you.
Domain names might be even more important. It is how you are found online. Too difficult to remember and a potential customer can’t find your website. Too hard to type and they end up at your competitor’s website. Too long and they don’t want to type it. Too generic and they find a dozen other businesses with the same name.
Those are some of the major considerations to take into account when deciding on a domain name. You want it to be a good length, memorable but not too generic, and easy to type. However, there is another important consideration: search engines currently reward domain names with descriptive keywords in them.
Here is what this means. If someone searches for, say, “blue widgets”, the website http://bluewidgets.com has a better chance of coming up in the search results than another company that sells blue widgets but is located at http://bwforall.com. The search engines assume that a domain name with a keyword in it is highly targeted towards that key phrase, and thus should rank higher.
This exact match property is difficult to beat. If you are the site bwforall.com competing against bluewidgets.com, you are going to struggle hard and long trying to rank above them for “blue widgets.” On the other hand, if you had chosen the domain ultrabluewidgets.com you might have an easier time of it.
With this in mind, you should pick a domain name which clearly identifies your company. bluewidgets.com might rank higher for that phrase, but it misses out on the “don’t pick too generic of a domain for your business” consideration. A previous customer is not likely to remember the business name when they go looking for the website again.
There are many things to take into account when deciding on a domain name. They may cost less than $15, but choosing the right one can make or break your business. Put a lot of thought and planning into it before making a decision.
Image Credit: Pisetobis
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