Whether you are planning to start a website or just an online business, the first and the foremost thing that you need to buy is a domain name.
In laymen terms, a domain name represents your business, brand, and the whole idea behind your website’s existence.
If chosen wisely, it can prove efficient for your business but, if not, the results can be another way around too.
You see, your domain name is the first thing that people encounter in the search results and, it’s crucial in terms of SEO as well. Hence, rather than rushing into choosing a domain name, here are a few tips that you should consider first-hand before buying a domain name.
How to Choose a Domain Name?
Don’t be worried about choosing the right domain name for your business or website. In this post, we have covered all the technicalities and legalities before buying a domain name and also shared 9 tips to buy the right domain name. Let’s not waste time more, Here is the first one.
1) Brand-Related
Now, your domain should convey people the idea behind your brand, what is it about, and why should they visit your website. For instance, whenever you hear the name entrepreneur dot com, you will immediately get an idea that it will have everything relate to business, start-ups, money, etc.
Hence, choose a domain name that’s unique, as well as, related to your brand. Take another example of Backlinko – a site that primarily focuses on increasing backlinks to your website.
Instead of keeping it as Backlink do com, Brian Dean names it as Backlinko. The name sounds unique while giving a clear idea about the brand.
However, there are a few successful businesses that chose quite distinct and unique names such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, Moz, etc.
If you want to follow their footsteps, do that but, don’t forget to consider the amount of competition that’s in your market. Also, these websites are pretty old and, they came into existence when there wasn’t much competition.
2) Keep It Sweet and Simple
A domain name must be short and memorable as well. Do not go for something that looks more like a sentence rather than a name! According to Data Genetics, the most common domain names have a length of 12-3 characters only.
Look for names that are shorter, unique, understandable, and easy to remember. Try to keep it between 6-14 characters. Remember, your domain name should be smaller than your tagline.
3) Avoid Hyphens and Numbers
We have encountered many websites that use hyphens, as well as, numbers in between their domain names. Though it’s not a big blunder, it’s neither a good practice. People usually forget where to put hyphens or numbers while typing the domain name in search boxes.
For instance, do you think Instagram would have been this popular if spelt as Insta-Gram or Instagram1? No, right? Half of the people wouldn’t remember this at all!
4) Easy To Pronounce
Trust us when we say – nothing spreads faster than word-of-the-mouth. Hence, keep your domain name such that people can pronounce it instantly and clearly. You don’t want people to get confused while saying or misinterpret the name.
What you can do is, spell out your domain name to your friends and, if most of them pronounce it wrong, change it, refine it!
5) No Typo Errors
How much struggle do you have to do while typing Google, Facebook, Instagram, Yahoo, CNN? Negligible, right? That is how your domain name should be.
Everyone must be able to spell it without any errors. It may happen that people are landing to an entirely new website because of a single typing error.
Pronounce your domain name to a bunch of your friends and, ask them to spell it. If most of them spell it correct, congratulations and if not, time to rectify. Hence, your domain name should be easy to spell and pronounce as well.
6) Seek Help from Thesaurus
Another thing that you can do is to look for synonyms related to your domain name. For example, if you are having a website dedicated to baking recipes, you can go for names like thebakinghub, bakingfactory, bakingfarm, and so on.
We get it, the more the competition in your marker, the more will be the struggle to choose a domain name. Hence, it might take you weeks to research, analyse, and settle for one. But, there are many other platforms that you can consider for help.
You can visit any domain name generator and look out for the options. Remember, permutation and combinations? That is what you have to do here. Mix and match hundreds of different names to choose one for yourself. Is it easy? No. Is it worth it? Definitely, yes.
7) Use Keywords
Though huge businesses like Google, Facebook, and Moz didn’t follow this, you have to because the competition is getting bigger every day. Take the help of keyword research tools and search for simple keywords related to your brand.
Try to accommodate the keyword at front. This way, you are helping yourself both SEO point of view and user-friendliness too.
But, refrain from stuffing your domain name with highly competitive keywords. Remember, you have to be unique, keyword-inspired, as well as, simple.
8) Check for Social Media And Trademarks
So, if you have a website or a business, social presence becomes a priority. What if you purchase a domain name which and Facebook already has a business page with the same name or the name has a trademark! It will be your worst nightmare.
Hence, either do your research manually, or you take help of Knowem. With Knowem, you can search for your domain name availability on 500 different platforms along with trademarks.
9) Think Big and Long-Term
Even if you don’t have bigger plans for your website, it’s always wise to think of the future. Always choose a domain name that allows you to expand your business and suits with other perspectives as well.
For example, if you are starting as an SEO-service business, your domain name shouldn’t be entirely related to SEO as in future you might think of including content writing, designing, web development to it as well.
Conclusion: Now you can decide how to buy a domain name
Finally, here we come to an end of the various tips that you must consider before purchasing a domain name. As we said earlier, choosing a .com domains name will not be an easy task to do, but, it would be worth all your hard work and analysis. Hence, keep searching and never give up until you find a suitable domain name for yourself.
Once you have a domain name, you would like to have your website set up, marketing, promotion, and all such things. For this, you can consult a reliable digital marketing agency in Delhi.
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