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When choosing
your domain name, there are several things you need to
consider. The most important thing, one you cannot get
around, is whether your choice is free or already taken.
Which TLD (Top
Level Domain) Are you an international
company, or do you operate in more than 1 country, then
the best TLD is most likely .com. If you operate in 1
country only, and have no plans for going
internationally, then the TLD for your country gives
your customers more information (they immediately know
they are dealing with a local company). Nothing stops
you from registering both the .com and the country
domain.
Keywords
into your domain When you have considered the
TLD, your next step is to find the domain itself. 1 very
important consideration to make is how your potential
visitors are supposed to find your site. In general,
most web-surfers either type yourname.com directly into
their browser (the group that knows what company they
are looking for) or they go and search for your site on
the different search engines available. The first
group will only be relevant if you have a well known
company, with a strong brand. Your domain name should
definitely be exactly the same as your company name (or
brand). Most companies are not yet in such a position,
and rely on the second group of visitors to get to there
site. In this case, the keywords a user will search with
should be in your domain name. If your company is called
"toolittle", and you are selling toys for children, then
a possible domain name would be "toolittle.com". But
remember that your potential customers won't be
searching with the keyword "toolittle", but rather
"children toys". A better domain name could then be
"children-toys.com". The more your keywords are into
your domain name (and the content in of your site), the
better your rankings will be for those keywords when
people search them.
The hyphen (-) It's
clear you need keywords in your domain name, but
remember that any search engine is nothing more than a
machine. A domain name like "childrentoys.com" looks
interesting at first, but to the search engine, this
domain name exists of 1 keyword: "childrentoys" and not
2: "children" and "toys". To make a distinction between
the 2 words, it is sometimes common to use the hyphen (-) like
this: "children-toys.com". However, when people have to
remember the domain name (for mouth to mouth
advertising, etc), domains without a hyphen are easier
to remember. A solution to this is to use
"children-toys.com" when registring with the search
engines, and for online advertising, but also buy
"childrentoys.com" for those persons who will not type
the hyphen. When you take these small tips into
consideration, you are sure to find an excellent domain
name for your site. And remember, for the small price of a
domain name, nothing stops your from registering multiple
variants for the same site.
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