Depending on your reasons for creating a website, picking a domain name for your web content to be parked at can sometimes be a tricky and challenging endeavor. On one hand, it is just a name people type in in order to land at your website, so could it really be all that difficult to choose a domain when signing up for one on a popular site like Godaddy? If you care about getting lots of traffic visiting your website, then you may want to give this more careful consideration than you may have initially intended to do. In fact, here are a few tips to help you to pick the best domain name to help people land at your website.

The Danger of Long Domain Names

An important best practice for domain names begins with a question of how long your website’s domain name should be. If you have ever had to type in a really long URL to reach a desired website, you can probably appreciate how much of a sheer hassle that turns out to be. In all honesty, it is down right annoying. This is especially true if you get even one character wrong while typing in a lengthy URL. Doing that could result in an error. As a consequence, lengthy, difficult to type domain names are never a good option.

The trick to choosing a domain name that will have a better than average chance of getting traffic to your website is to try to keep your domain name short and sweet. This way there is less of a chance that people will make mistakes typing it into their web browser’s address bar. In fact, some of the easiest domain names to type are only one or two syllables maximum. Once you get much longer than that, you are actually putting an obstacle between your website and the web traffic you want visiting it. It is best to avoid doing that if you want consistently high traffic volume to your website.

Avoid Numbers and Special Characters

Another mistake to avoid is a domain name that contains numbers or other special characters like hyphens. Even a lot of people who type regularly have difficulty typing numbers and many of the special characters available on the keyboard. Consequently, people who are not great typists are going to get frustrated having to type in these characters every time they want to visit your website. Additionally, this is another reason why people will likely type in a URL incorrectly and end up landing on the wrong website or getting an error. So, your job is to not only come up with a short domain name, but one that is easy to type too. Take a look at this example that shows not only one hyphen in their domain name but several:

(Image Credit: SEOptimer)

Think of a Domain That Is Memorable

Another important best practice for domain names is to choose a domain name that is catchy and has staying power in the minds of others. If you want loads of traffic to your website, then you want a domain name which gets right under people’s skin and pops into their mind often. Remember, having a domain name for a website is actually part of your website’s own inherent marketing strategy. So, the more memorable and thought provoking your domain name happens to be, the more likely it will be firmly planted in the minds of people who surf the web on a regular basis. The less memorable your domain name happens to be, the less likely it will pop into people’s minds when they are surfing the Internet. Sometimes the SEO strategies that end up working out the best are the ones that the search engines cannot tamper with as a consequence of changing their search algorithms, and this is one of those strategies.

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Try out Your Domain Name on Others

It is normal for a person to like the domain names they choose for websites they manage. The problem that must be considered is how do other people react when they see or hear that domain name? More importantly, would they want to click that website domain if they saw it in a list of ranked domains? Testing the domain name you want to use with a number of different people is an important indicator to how effective your SEO efforts will be overall. If no one likes the domain name you do end up choosing, this could spell disaster for your website metrics. It could also spell disaster for your online sales if the domain you choose is central to driving traffic to your ecommerce site.

Therefore, it is generally a smart idea to know how others receive and react to your domain name, so that you can get a feel for how well that domain name will perform when ranked against other competing websites for attracting organic search engine traffic. If you are worried that your domain name might be stolen out from under you when performing a market test like this, then simply purchase the domain name beforehand. Sure, this is a small, tax-deductible expense, but you do not want to accidentally let a good thing slip through your fingers.

The Moment of Truth

Once you have decided on the domain name you want, the next step is to visit a site like Godaddy and perform a domain name search. You should be prepared to be disappointed, because it is common to find that someone else has already purchased the domain name you want for your website. That is right, someone has likely already picked and purchased the domain name you want to use for your website. For this reason, it is perhaps best to have two or three different domain name ideas in mind. This way, it becomes more likely that one of your domain name search attempts will come back to reveal that no one has purchased that domain name yet. Something to keep in mind is that sites that sell access to domain names will often run specials at certain times of the year. You can always wait to purchase a domain name until the price is at a discount, but there is always the risk that someone else will pick the domain name you want up in the meantime. So, while this is a potential money saving strategy, it is still a bit of a risky strategy that may cost you SEO wise down the road if you have to pick a different domain name that does not represent your website as well as your original choice. The image below shows what Godaddy looks like:

(Image Credit: Godaddy)

Does Domain Extension Affect SEO

A common question that comes up from time-to-time is the following: “Does domain extension affect SEO?” The simple answer to this question is that potentially anything associated with your website’s domain name can affect SEO. So, it is best to assume that anything that has to do with your website’s domain name is actively having an impact on SEO. Even if the impact is relatively low in terms of search engine algorithms, the greater impact is one of perception in the eyes of an organic search audience. For example, people tend to trust and click on websites when they have .com, .net, .org, .gov, .edu and other popular top-level domain (tld) references. You may not want to stray far from those kinds of extensions unless you have an extremely good reason for doing so.

Extremely Good Reasons for Choosing Other TLD

One of the reasons people register a domain name with a different TLD extension is because a lot of domain names with the .com ending are already taken. However, if you are operating a website out of the United States or the United Kingdom, it may be more advantageous SEO wise to choose .US or .UK extensions. This is because popular search engines like Google will tend to serve up and rank these websites higher in their country of origin. If your website is only intended to serve people in your country of origin, then that country’s domain name extension may be a smarter purchase to consider for your website. However, it is important to know that this strategy may not work so well if your website is intended to have a more global reach. Also, certain domain name extensions are niche specific, so you may want a business website to be ranked with other businesses having the same niche extension. Just know that niche extensions tend to be less popular than the .com, .net and .org options. In the image below you will see that Brighton Swim Club can use the .US extension because they are based in the United States:

(Image Credit: Make A Website Hub)

Domain Extensions with Restrictions

Earlier we talked about .gov and .edu extensions. Using these extensions with your domain name may or may not be possible. It really depends on the kind of regulations currently being imposed on these domain extensions. For example, to obtain a .edu domain extension, the organization or institution you represent must meet certain requirements to be given access to this domain extension type for their website domain. Failure to meet these mandated regulatory measures will inevitably prohibit you from purchasing the .edu option. It should be noted that obtaining a .gov or .edu extension, when possible, can provide the website holder with such a domain with an important SEO advantage when it comes to search engine rankings. This is because .gov and .edu domains tend to rank higher with popular search engine algorithms.

Buying up Competing Extensions

While a popular domain purchasing site like Godaddy can service your desire to have a domain name for your website, they will also give you the option to buy the same domain name with other extensions. This can be an important strategy for preventing other individuals or companies from having access to your domain name with another popular domain extension than the one you chose. The last thing you want is some obnoxious individual buying “yourdomainname.xyz” and writing bad things about your company only to find out you cannot do anything to prevent that from happening. Or worse, you don’t want someone purchasing other popular extensions that are commonly used only to extort you for a higher price if you need access to those domain extensions at a later time for any reason. Furthermore, even if you have to spend a little more to purchase a few extra repeat domain names with different extensions, you should redirect them all to your website using a 301 redirect. This way, if potential customers forget your domain name extension, then even typing in the most common extensions will help them to land on your website without any trouble. This is like a free SEO perk that is organically built into this domain extension purchasing strategy. Here are a couple examples of domains that could potentially become competitors in the future:

(Image Credit: RoadToBlogging)

Operating with Radically Different Domain Names Can Be a SEO Disaster

Sometimes people will buy two or more radically different domain names, and they will point them all to the same website with a 301 redirect. The hope in this case is to get ranked with domain names that employ different keywords from one another, not to be confused with the same domain name having different extensions. In rare cases this strategy might work or even go unnoticed by some search engines. However, the important thing to remember here is that search engines like Google do not like to find two very different domain names pointing to the same web content. So, this SEO strategy, while seemingly clever on the surface, can backfire in a huge way. Google prefers to give higher rankings to domain names with unique content.

We hope that you found this article useful.

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Domain History

When it comes to the decision of buying a domain name, it is a very good idea to check into that domain name’s history. This kind of domain name SEO check will pull up any kind of historical baggage associated with the domain name in question about which you should be concerned. You never know when a domain name that was held by a former owner may have had web content associated with it that could lead to your website taking a negative SEO hit. This could be something simple like a domain name that used to be attached to an adult content website or worse. The last thing you want is the hassle of having to go through and clean up an already tarnished domain name of the bad reputation it possesses. You want your website to have a domain name that is devoid of any such historical problems. However, if you purchase a domain that has a really good history, that might be a lucky SEO perk that could really help your website jump ahead in rankings.

There are many tools you can use to check your domain history. For example, who.is:

Does Domain Age Matter

Another domain name SEO check that gets some attention is the age of the domain. It is believed by some that the older a domain happens to be the more this can impact SEO. From a sheer age standpoint, this does not seem to hold true. However, the older a domain is, the more likely it has history. Perhaps the only truly relevant aspect of domain name age is what was already discussed concerning domain history earlier.

(Image Credit: WebNots)

Domain Authority Is It Fact or Fiction?

Another domain name SEO check that people make a big deal about is Domain Authority (DA). Yet, while there is a lot of hype surrounding this particular metric as an indicator for SEO, the simple reality is it is perhaps far more fiction than fact. This is especially the case when it comes to whether or not DA will help with Google rankings. While a lot of SEO people still talk about it as having relevance, there is nothing solid to suggest that Google even pays any attention to this metric at all. In fact, the better strategy would be to associate the domain name you chose with authority content on your website. Because Google definitely takes notice of authority content which will improve search engine rankings for a website far more effectively than some made up DA score put out by a third-party company that Google does not rely on for ranking advice.

Managing Public and Internal Domain Names

So, you just got promoted. This is when you learn that all the duties of the network administrator fall on your shoulders. This means, any time a new active directory domain needs to be generated, it will be up to you to choose the right domain name to use for such an occasion. When it comes to managing domain names you have registered and want to make public, versus those network domains you want to remain private, you will want to use a proper naming strategy to keep up with active directory domain name best practices. For example, you might utilize a naming approach like the following:

1. ext.businessname.com
2. int.businessname.com

Thus, the subdomain names being used are an inactive form which can be used either publicly or privately on your network. What makes this a good strategy is that you only need to register a single domain name. The number of internal subdomain names you can create and use with this strategy are potentially endless. However, something you will want to steer clear of when considering active directory domain name best practices is using what was once an acceptable practice, namely non routable TLD name options, like .local, .lan and .corp, for example. These days this practice is no longer a good idea, since ICANN now offers the .local, .lan and .corp TLD name references for sale to third party individuals. And if someone happens to purchase one of these forms, then they would now own a domain you are actively using which could create problems for you or your company.

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