How to choose a domain for your website

As stated earlier, this choice exerts great influence. So, check out the correct way to choose a domain name for your website :

1. Understand what the domain is for

A very important tip for those who want to choose a domain name is to understand its purpose. This helps a lot when choosing a better domain for your website. From the moment you understand what the real purpose of a domain is, it becomes easier to decide which one will be best for the site.

So keep in mind that the domain is your website address. And whenever someone wants to access the site they will need to type this address in the browser .

It is also important to take into account that this domain will be used to create personalized emails with the website address. For this reason, it's important to choose a domain name that will represent your business well when used in email addresses.

2. Be persistent

The reality is that you are unlikely to find a good domain name available on the first try. The chosen name may already be used by someone else, but this is normal. There is no reason to be discouraged, as everyone who needs to create a website faces this problem.

Before you start checking the availability of a domain , make a list of several possible names. From there, check which ones are available and select the best names for your website's domain .

It is normal to have to carry out several searches until you find the “perfect” domain name and it is available. It is very important to be persistent and not get discouraged. Many people end up choosing a bad domain name because they don't have the patience to check many different combinations.

3. Domain length

Regarding the length of the domain, that is, the size it has, it is important to emphasize that the smaller, the better. Short domain names are easier to remember. The easier it is, the better the . In general, people find it difficult to memorize very long domain names. For this reason, when choosing a domain, give preference to those that are easy to memorize.

When it comes to promoting your website, having a short address can make all the difference. If you put it on a business card, banner, or billboard, it might struggle to spread a domain name that's too long, and it's also aesthetically ugly in some cases.

4. Simple and well-known names

The previous rule of choosing a short domain is important to facilitate memorization , however, there is no point in choosing a short domain if it has an unusual word or one considered “complex”.

For this reason, it's important that your domain only has words that are easy to memorize. It is important to avoid  foreign words , in addition, try to choose words that are well known to your target audience.

For example, the word “geek” may be strange to many people, but a site aimed at technology fans could use this term in the address without any problem. Knowing the site's target audience helps a lot in choosing the words that will compose the site's domain name.

5. Exclusive domain, no copies

It is very common for people to “copy” the address of a well-known website, changing only the domain extension. This practice is very harmful from the Brand/Branding creation point of view. The name you choose must be unique, so the domain can be recognized and associated with your business or product .

If you copy an existing brand, the only brand that comes out stronger is the original brand. In addition, there is the problem of SEO . When searching for the brand contained in your address, which was copied from another company, the person will probably come across this company's website and not yours.

In practice, this means that you always have a “competitor” in Google search results. For this reason, it is important to choose a unique . No creating websites “imitating” Amazon, Facebook or other well-known companies.

6. Typing and spelling errors

There is a good chance that the user will type your website address incorrectly into the browser . This can be a problem for someone who becomes very well known. To prevent your competitors from registering your domain with typos, you should do it first and avoid domains that generate a lot of mistakes due to difficult word choice.

It is important to register these domains early on as your competitors may register these domains first. Facebook, for example, registered the domain “facebok.com” (and many others) to ensure that people get to the correct site even when they type in the wrong address.

Another very important reason to register these possible misspelled domain names is that there are many scammers who take advantage of these domains to impersonate a company and commit fraud. In this sense, by registering domains with spelling errors, always redirecting to the correct domain , you avoid anyone impersonating you or your company.

7. Keywords in the domain

Whenever possible, include keywords in your domain name that are important to your website or business. If you have an SEO agency, try putting the keyword “SEO” in the domain name. This encourages users to click through to your site in search results – which is a site's main source of traffic.

There are several situations in which it is possible to include the most important keyword so that the website address remains “friendly” and easy to remember. But only do this if it makes any sense, putting a loose keyword in the website address can actually hurt rather than help.

8. Extension according to the activity

In Pak, there are several domain extensions for different activities . On the godaddy website   you will find a list of different categories of domains created for certain activities such as lawyers, accountants, teachers and several other fields.

It is interesting that you also register these special extensions, according to the activity of your website or company. This gives your website more credibility and more hits from search engines.

9. Avoid characters like hyphen and numbers

The use of characters such as hyphens or numbers in the website's domain name should be avoided. They make it difficult to remember and can make people confused about the address. Characters like these can make the task of memorizing the website address much more difficult.

Although some domain extensions allow many other special characters. It is important that they are avoided so that the user is able to memorize the site easily. Special characters, in addition to making memorization difficult, can confuse users when typing the address.

10. Most used domain extensions

It is important to give preference to registering domains with the “.com” extension , especially if it is a website for a company. People tend to type in the site with the ending “.com” first when they are in doubt about the address. But nothing prevents you from registering the domain with the “.com” or “.net” extension.

There are many websites in Pak registered with the extension “.com” and “.net” simply because people couldn't get a good domain name “.com”. But as mentioned earlier, it is important that you are persistent in finding a good domain name for your website.

Best Extensions for registering a domain:

11. Perform tests

After following the tips above to choose a good domain for your website, do some tests to make sure that it is easy to remember and simple to type. To do this, ask an acquaintance or family member to enter the address (no copying and pasting).

If the person mistypes the address you mentioned, it could be an indication that it is not simple enough. Another test that can be done is to ask the person to memorize the address. After 5 or 10 minutes, ask her if she still remembers the website address. This test helps a lot when checking if the domain name is easy to remember .

Published on: 2/19/23, 8:54 AM