Domain Name

Why a Domain Name is Important – To Your Website?

Have you ever wondered why a domain name is important? I discovered that a domain name is very important to your website. In fact, a poor domain name can adversely affect your online business.

Give your website domain name a lot of thought before you purchase it so it doesn’t cause you a headache later. When selecting a domain name for your business, keep in mind that your domain name is how you identify yourself online.

What you do to improve your domain value is the same thing you would do to improve your website’s value. Particularly, you should get more customers visiting your website. The more well-liked your website is, the more valuable the domain will get.

• Keep improving SEO rankings because if visitors can find your site easily the more likely they are to visit more often.

• Write more content because the more content you have, the more pages for visitors to see. It will also brand you as an expert in your niche.

• Market your website in appropriate settings through all social media to let people know that the site exists.

• Keep the domain for a long time to obtain domain age. The older the domain is the more valuable it will become. However, it must be an active domain and not just one page sitting just to obtain domain age.

• The domain must have usability. This deals with the ease of the domain name. Domains that are hard to spell, are very long or difficult to type will not gain value. Once you own a domain you will not be able to change or revise the name.

• Always use a top-level domain (TLD) such as .com, .net, .org. etc. Again, this can’t be changed after you own it. However, you could purchase the domain name with a TLD if it is available.

Most experienced online business owners understand to select easy domain names that express what they do, but at the same time lets them stand out from others. Having short and snappy names are okay, but not if they put the website at a disadvantage.

People should be able to easily determine what your site is about when they first see your URL. If they are not clear whether your site can meet their needs, they will probably pass over yours. Your branding is a failure because the visitor could not associate the name of your site to what they need.

Domain Name Growth

Let’s say you are good at making pies so you select a domain name of “NannysPies.com”. For a while, that may work out fine. But, what happens down the road when you decide to branch out and add other sweets to your repertoire? Your domain name no longer tells people what you do.

Think about leaving yourself for some room for growth. Therefore, you could have initially named your site “DessertsByNanny.com. This domain name can grow with your business.

So, when selecting a domain name, think about future business growth or expansion and choose a domain name that can grow with your actual business.

You will most likely have your website for a long time and with it you will have your domain name for a long time. Make sure your domain name can stand the test of time.

Remember when we moved into the 21st century and a lot of businesses were incorporating “2000” or “millennium” in their domain names? Domain names like that aren’t good because they don’t tell what you do and there is no wiggle room for the domain name to grow with the business growth.

Using Keywords in Domain Names

Including keywords in your domain name may provide your website with a small boost, but not enough to stress about if you can’t. The important rule to remember is that you should never craft a tactless or unrelated domain name to be snappy or just to get a keyword in.

You wouldn’t use keywords that couldn’t help get conversions, right? The same would apply for using domain names that don’t help people know what you do.

Stand Out

Try to select a domain name that will help you stand out from your competitors. Your domain name needs to be distinctive and easy to remember and easy to type.

The name should be as straightforward as possible. Even if the name tells what you do if it is long, complicated and hard to remember it will not be a successful domain name.

Your domain name should have some “curb appeal”. That is, it should be appealing to look at. Be careful of using double letters because at times it can be confusing to people when the letters are all crunched together without spacing.

I came across this URL: MensExchange.com. A visitor could type the URL as “mensexchange.com”. Do you see the difference? You could run into a problem because the search engines could mistakenly identify it as an adult website!! Pay close attention to the curb appeal of your domain name.

It is best not to use numbers in any form, hyphens or special characters in your domain name. I would also suggest that if your business is local to a city or state you can include that in the domain name. For instance, if your product is collision repair, the domain name could be “TowsonCollisionRepair.com”.

Consider Other Extensions

Extensions are used at the end of the domain names, such as .COM. The extensions have specific uses. Make sure you choose the extension that is best for your business. It is not mandatory to always use .COM just because it is considered the most professional.

The list shown below are some of the more main extensions and how they are used.

• • .co : abbreviation for company, commerce and community
  • .info : informational sites
  • .net : technical, internet infrastructure sites
  • .org : non-commercial organizations and non-profits
  • .biz : business or commercial use, like ecommerce sites
  • .me: blogs, resumes or personal sites

(Courtesy of GoDaddy Small Business Center)

A Possibility of Helping Build Your Brand

You may want to guard and build your brand. You can accomplish this by buying various domain extensions and also versions of your domain name that have been spelled incorrectly. This way you keep your competitors from purchasing other extensions and will ensure that visitors are directed to your website.

There are some dishonest people who participate in cybersquatting. Cybersquatting is when someone purchases the same name but in the other extensions as a deliberate act to steal traffic.

Domain Expiration

I have one last important bit of information concerning your domain name. NEVER let your domain name expire!  Domain names go very quickly. There may be people just waiting in the wings for your name to expire so they can jump on it.

Where would that leave your website if that were to happen? If you let it expire and someone else registers it, legally you can no longer use it because it now belongs to that guy who was waiting in the wings.

Keep your contact information up-to-date with the company you registered your domain name with. You should be notified with a reminder that your domain will soon expire. Make sure you don’t overlook those notices. If you do, it may be the death of your website and that passive income.

Time to Purchase Your Domain

Now that you understand why a domain name is important, it’s time to consider where to get your domain name from.  My #1 recommendation for domain name purchase is NameCheap.

Call to Action:

Take a moment to check out my review of NameCheap.  I purchased all my domains from them and it is easy to transfer domain name servers to the hosting service of your choice.

 

I would be interested in hearing about your experiences with obtaining your domain name in the comment section.

Please feel free to contact me if you need help with anything. Just make a comment below or you can always get in touch with me through wealthyaffiliate.com (here is a link to my profile).

 

 

Verna
Founder of Your Trusted Affiliate

momstrustedaffiliate.com
email: verna@momstrustedaffiliate.com