Whether you are just starting your business or launching a new product with it’s own url, choosing a domain name can be a scary proposition. Your url will be with you for a long time, so you want to get it right. On the other hand, domain names are cheap. For as little as $10 you can register a new one and redirect or link to your other site.
Length of Domain Name
While you can register a domain name of up to 63 characters, you probably don’t want one that long. Imagine trying to fit it on your business card or a customer trying to type it into their web browser. It’s annoying and has more chances for error. Trust me – every time I have to type out www.thebabyboomerentrepreneur.dev, I curse having such a long domain name.
So how long is too long? Many experts suggest that staying under eight characters (not including the .com) is best. However, if you can’t find a shorter name, a longer one will work if it’s:
- easy to read
- easy to hear (no one is going to think you said something else)
- easy to spell
- easy to type
- easy to remember
Once again, www.thebabyboomerentrepreneur.dev falls short. Trust me, no one can spell entrepreneur. And if they can, your fingers just don’t want to type it. Every time I need to enter that stupid word in my computer my typing speed slows down to nothing.
Keywords
Where possible, having keywords related to your business in your domain name is a plus. Having keywords in your domain will help with people looking in search engines find you.
Not only that, keywords in the domain make it easy for people to see at a glance what your website offers. Hotmail.com and AutoTrader.com are two examples of sites whose purpose is obvious from their url.
However, I don’t think keywords are essential. Ever heard of Amazon.com? Of course you have. What does the word amazon have to do with books? Nothing. But with clever marketing, they’ve made sure anyone on-line has heard of it.
And it doesn’t have to be a single word like Amazon. Think of how many people’s websites are theirname.com – www.ChrisBrogan.com for one. In fact, I was on a call with non-fiction writing expert Dan Poynter who said he gets 20,000 hits a month on www.DanPoynter.com and he’s never published that url anywhere.
My url is a mixed bag from this point of view. I seriously doubt any of my target audience typed “baby boomer” into a search engine to find me (please let me know if I’m wrong here). However, I get a lot of calls from the media who found me that way.
I guess what I’m saying is having keywords in your url is great if it makes sense, but in the long run it doesn’t matter as much as your marketing. And whatever you decide for a url, you had better reserve your own name as well. If you become known at all, even just in your niche, people will type it in to find you.
Dot com
Always, always reserve the dot com url. While dot org, dot net or a country code (.ca or .uk) are okay, but you’d better own the dot com as well. The truth is most people automatically assume you’re a dot com. You don’t want people going to your competitor because you don’t own that version.
Hyphen and Underscore
I hate urls that have a hyphen or underscore. They are hard to type and I don’t always remember them.
Blogging expert Yaro Starak at www.entrepreneurs-journey.com has said he wouldn’t have a hyphen in his url if he was doing it again.
Particularly, don’t choose a hyphen or underscore because someone else has your preferred option. Just like dot org, people will forget the hyphen and wide up at your competitor’s site.
Testing the Final Cut
When you’ve narrowed down your choices to a final few names, do some testing to see which url works best. Ask friends and customers which they prefer. Your favorite may have unexpected problems when you talk to other people.
If you have the money, try using Google Adwords to test two or more domain names. Adwords expert Perry Marshall has done split testing on urls. When running two campaigns with identical ads (headlines and copy) where the only difference is the url, he’s seen as much as a 30 percent difference in click-through rates. This is good information to know before you spend a lot of time and money promoting a site.
Register Your Own Domain Name
Make sure you register your domain name choice(s) yourself. I’ve heard too many horror stories of people who hired a website designer before they’d registered the url. The designer registers the domain name “for the client” but actually made sure they were the one who owned the domain. Down the road if the business wants to change to another designer, they find their url is being held hostage.
Registering a new domain is easy and cheap. All you need is an internet connection and a credit card.
Andrea J. Stenberg
How did you choose your domain name? What factors did you consider? Would you make the same choice if you were doing it today? Leave a comment and let us know.
