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Your domain name is your virtual address. Choosing a good domain name is really important and it is your brand, the first thing your customers will see and hopefully the url they will bookmark or repeatedly enter. It’s quite easy for you to make a mistake when choosing your domain name and it could ultimately blow up your business.
Registering your domain name the right way can make a big difference in overall website performance. Consider these do’s and don’ts from small business owners and experts to help secure your business domain name.
To do
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- Register as the domain name owner -Some merchants make the mistake of not checking to be sure of the owner of the domain name in the event of registration by a third party. It is essential to ensure that you are the owner of the domain and the main administrative contact. Think of your website as property – if you don’t own it, you can’t sell it. This is one of the most common mistakes made by small and medium business owners. So remember to double-check with whom your domain name is registered.
- Try including your location or keyword in the domain- You can try incorporating your location into the domain name if your business is largely based on geographic region. If that sounds doable to you, try inserting the most important keyword in your industry into the keyword. This will prove helpful in ranking your website among the top search results organically.
- Be descriptive, your domain name should help them judge your business- Your domain name should describe what your website is about. It is important for a visitor to get an idea of what the website is about just by looking at the domain name. Your domain name should be easy to type/spell, easy to pronounce, and easy to remember.
- Domain name extension- Try to get the “.com” top level domain (TLD) extension as it is the most popular. It is also the most widely accepted domain name extension. When people think of a website, their mind automatically imagines “domain-name.com” as the address. You can also use the “.net” and “.org” extensions if you cannot find a “.com” extension.
Not to do
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- Do not use numbers, dashes, abbreviations – Replace abbreviations and find a catchy name that does your business justice and, more importantly, is easier to remember. With countless websites offering the same services, customers find it almost impossible to remember domain names unless they are straightforward and the perfect representation of a business.
- Don’t waste money on other extensions- When you finally decide to do an available domain name search, you’ll be bombarded with options like .net and .co, but for most small businesses, that’s not really necessary. You can invest in other domain extensions when protecting something like a trademark. However, always remember that the real value is in the ‘.com’.
Related reading:
New domain for Google; Call it ‘Domains.Google’
A general checklist
- Legal disputes:Make sure you don’t choose a domain name similar to an established competitor.
- Avoid copyright issues: Make sure the name you are going to use is not copyrighted.
- Beware of scammers: There are a lot of scammers out there, so try to make sure you buy your domain name from a registrar that is part of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers)list of accredited registrars.
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