Choosing a domain name has become progressively more difficult since the early days of the Internet. Once upon a time, you could easily find just the right domain for your company but lately it seems that all the good domains are taken. This is because there are more people than ever before starting online businesses, and even those businesses that don’t operate online understand that they need at the very least, and online presence. Its also because once people realized that some companies were willing to pay top dollar for the right domain, they started gobbling them up left and right, often using automated bots to scan the Internet looking for new buzz words that could be registered as domains. To add even more challenges to the equation, search engine optimization has become a factor over the last few years.
Don’t be discouraged though. With a little creativity and some research, you can still find a domain that works perfectly for your company by applying the following factors:
It should be memorable - It doesn’t necessarily have to be short as long as it is easy to remember.
It should be brandable – Realestate.com may be an extreemly valuable domain, but it is not nearly as brandable as southtampawaterfront.com would be. Keywords in a domain are great (more on that in a minute) but shouldn’t take priority.
It should take SEO into account – TomJones.com meets the first two criteria, but fails on the third because it offers no SEO benefit. TomJonesRealEstate.com, however, meets all three with flying colors. Take some time to read Aaron Wall’s recent article on Choosing domain names for SEO for some great information on this subject.
Keep in mind, whenever possible, you should buy the .com version because it generally conveys more trust.
