Choosing a Domain Name

Choosing a domain name is not what it may seem.

When setting up a new website most small businesses buy a domain name that reflects the name of their business. For example, a business called ABC Services might choose the domain name www.abcservices.co.uk or www.abc-services.co.uk.

What’s wrong with that?

Well it’s pretty simple really…

The domain names www.abcservices.co.uk and www.abc-services.co.uk tell the search engines precisely nothing about what the website sells. Search engines place a lot of importance on the words within the domain name itself – sometimes more so than anything else, so they are very unlikely to list either of the above domain names highly in their results pages.

Remember that in order to be an effective marketing tool which generates new leads and sales, a small business website needs to attract visitors from the search engines. Without that search engine traffic your website or blog will never really be anything more than a piece of useless online real estate that costs you money instead of making you money.

Here is a real life example of a brilliantly chosen domain name…

I live and work in a town in Warwickshire England called Rugby. Now let’s imagine I’m looking for a builder to carry out some work on my house. What would I type into a search engine to find one?

How about Rugby builders?

If you type Rugby builders into Google for instance, the number one spot is taken by a company called D L Maintenance. Why?

Almost certainly because their domain name is www.rugbybuilders.co.uk.

D L Maintenance have made it really easy for the search engines to list them for what they actually do, and also as a result, they have made it very hard for their competition to beat them in the listings for their chosen keyword i.e. Rugby builders.

Of course, search engine traffic is affected by many factors not just your domain name, and it rarely happens overnight. It will probably take several weeks or perhaps a few months to start getting traffic from the search engines, but when you do it will continue and be free of charge!

So do yourself and your business a big favour – choose your domain name wisely.

To do this don’t guess! Use the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. It will tell you what people are typing into Google when they are looking for what it is that you do. Choose a keyword or preferably a key phrase (one that contains two or three words) that has lots of monthly search volume and low competition. Also, remember to look at the local figures, not the global ones if you don’t sell abroad.

This is the first step to search engine optimisation for your website. 

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3. Inbound Links: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
4. Affiliate Programmes Explained
5. Free Online Advertising