Many of you know that my #1 side gig and business rule is that everyone needs a website. Well, without a domain name you can’t have a findable website. So that means your domain name is as important as the actual site. In actuality the domain name controls the website and whoever controls the domain name is in charge.
Think of your website as your house, the place where you live online. Like a regular home you need an address to be found. Rather than assign a website along list of numbers you get to choose an easy to remember domain name. Your domain name is associated with a set of name servers that tell the Internet where your website is hosted. Name server addresses are entered at your domain name account registrar like Go Daddy or Network Solutions.
Think of a phone number like 1-800-843-2665. It would be easier to remember 1-800-THE-COOL. That’s exactly why we use domain names. There are many factors in deciding on the perfect domain name. Take a little time to research your choice but don’t let that stop you from getting started. Pick something and get going, you can always make changes later.
You can always change your name at a later date and even forward a new name to the old one. But! Don’t wait too long. If your business or side gig starts picking up steam you will need to make a decision quickly. The age of a domain name has been a ranking factor in Google before so the sooner you can get your name online the better.
I personally have owned over 100 domain names and still have a rather large collection. I have my own set of rules that will help guide you to a great domain name. There might be a reason for you to differ from my guidelines which is fine.
1. Purchase your name, business name, brand or keywords. This seems pretty obvious. I own CurtisTucker.com which is my name. I run EnidBuzz.com which is the name of my main gig. And I purchased EnidBusinesses.com which is a local business directory for Enid, Oklahoma. Most people will search for you by name so it would be advisable to buy your name if possible. Unfortunately your name may not be available. Someone may already be using it or a cyber squatter may have reserved it.
If you can’t get your exact domain name you can alter it slightly or choose a different name. At one time I wanted to buy CartoonLogos.com but it was not available so I purchased ECartoonLogos.com. If your name is gone try adding your middle initial or full middle name.
There might be circumstances where you want to buy your name or business name but would like to use something else as your domain name. Guess what? You can point more than one domain name to the same website! You cannot point a domain name to more than one website though. For example, I purchased CurtisTucker.com years ago but have since started branding myself as That Buzz Guy. So! I purchased ThatBuzzGuy.com and it forwards to CurtisTucker.com! Just like a phone number or email address.
Another example of when you might need two domain names is if one is very long or hard to remember. I purchased BottleCapsMercantile.com because we opened a brick and mortar store. That is the name of the store but is a bit much to type all of the time. So I also purchased BCMerc.com which forwards to BottleCapsMercantile.com. That way I can give people a much easier name to type in.
2. Purchase a .com. You can tell someone a million times that your website is WhiteHouse .gov and they’ll usually go straight to WhiteHouse.com. I always suggest getting a .com. Almost everyone has heard of famous DotComs whereas very few remember a famous .net, .edu, .org, etc. If you can’t get the .com go with a different name rather than going for a .net. Anything other than the .com will appear as not being the original or best web address. It’s like taking second place.
These days you can purchase a wide variety of descriptive extensions like .pizza, .photography, .buzz, .smile, .life, .lawyer, .me and many, many others. These are cute and can be fun to purchase but I would not use one of these as your main domain name. Like I said I own EnidBuzz.com but I also own Enid.Buzz. They both forward to the same website. I bought it just for fun and to make sure someone else didn’t come along and try to compete with me.
Some companies will purchase the .com, .net and .org to protect their brand. They don’t want anyone using their brand with a different extension. I’ll do a post on trademarking down the line.
3. Pick a name available on social media. Another factor for choosing a domain name might be the vanity usernames on social media. In an ideal world you would want to have your domain name as your username on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and other social media platforms. If your username is gone on most social media accounts you can pick a different domain name which helps with branding or you might just have to choose a variety of social media account names that don’t match. It’s not a huge deal but makes branding a little messy and less memorable.
4. The shorter the better. Try to get the shortest domain name possible. I purchased ShaggyDuck.com but my company name was Shaggy Duck Media & Design. Short domains are easier to remember, faster to type and actually worth more if you ever try to resell. Finding a four or five letter domain name is much like finding a nugget of gold. They are almost impossible to find unless they make no sense at all. I made up several six letter domains like Weetys.com. My shortest domain name is EHS81.com at five letters. It stands for Enid High School Class of 1981.
5. Choose a catchy name. There might be times when you are creating a fun online business and want something really catchy. Think of names like Google, Apple, Yahoo and Monster. My first domain name was Curtoons.com in 1999. It is a combination of my first name Curtis and the word cartoons. It was the perfect cartoon website name which I still own today. I also used to make up new words back in the day. I combined Zoinks and Jinkies from Scooby Doo and came up with Zoinkies.com.
6. Avoid hyphens and numbers. Although I just said I own EHS81.com I would not recommend using numbers unless it is specific to the name. Do not use a hyphen, nobody will remember it is in your name and they’ll never find you. The problem with numbers is that searches won’t know whether to use the number or spell out the word.
7. Don’t use a trademarked name. After the release of the Apple iPad I purchased iPadBum.com. I would blog about iPads, apps and accessories. It was a bad choice of names because I could never really promote it with merchandise and I could never trademark it myself because it was using the word iPad. If I had printed anything using the term and tried selling it, Apple would have shut me down really quickly. Make sure you have complete freedom to market your domain name without possibility of legal action.
8. Purchase an existing domain name. There might be a domain name that your really like or your actual brand name might be parked. In those cases you might want to purchase an existing domain name. Beware that you’ll pay way more than the actual $8-12 cost. Be sure and negotiate. One benefit will be that the domain name will have some age which could help in rankings. A negative might be that the domain was used for illegal purposes and or had been blocked in search rankings in the past. Be sure and do several searches online to see what info comes up. You can also visit the Way Back Machine to see what website had been connected with the domain.
Be sure and set your name to auto-renew! If you lose your name someone will snag it. They’ll hold it as long as they can and charge you big bucks to get it back. At one time I owned WebZot.com, a name I totally made up. I purchased the domain for about $10 from a registrar that I normally did not use. They did not have auto-renew on. The second the domain expired it was purchased by someone else. Over the years I’ve seen it used a few times but it is now parked and is for sale. Guess what the asking price is? $50,000! LOL!
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