How To Choose A Domain Name? Avoid These Common Mistakes

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How To Choose A Domain Name?

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How to choose a domain name that will make sense to your new online business or web presence is crucial.

A domain name is the home address of your future online real estate. Your website/blog/funnel. You name it.

That is the URL users will type to find you online. 

What’s a URL?

The URL means the address of a web page that into a browser’s address bar”.

URL: https://onlinebusinesshustle.com

Domain Name: onlinebusinesshustle

Extension: .com

So, It should be congruent with what your business is all about! A domain name that is more appealing to be clicked by whom is searching a specific topic that you are trying to rank your business.

How to choose a good domain name is not an easy task because the “No Need To Search For More” that will come to your head in the first place, most likely was already taken by someone else. 

Been there and it sucks!

Mainly because we start to become frustrated with this endless search. All the good ones seem to be taken already.

Finding a domain name for your future business is supposed to be a fun task. However, because of the millions of websites out there finding one good available domain name can be a tedious and nerve-racking task. 

That’s why we need to be creative but cautious at the same time “not letting creativity get us off track” by avoiding some mistakes that we can easily make while choosing our domain name.

Be patience! That’s normal in this business. Don’t be discouraged.

To help you make the right or at least a better choice while choosing your domain name. Let’s talk about what I’ve researched and found related to this topic.

I have personally experienced this same issue with this blog. This domain that I’m using is not the original when I started this blog.

Well, this can be arguable about my decision but have chosen to opt for one meaningless domain name that I’ve owned in the past and was still active. First lesson learned here!

Here I want to share some helpful tips and some common mistakes that we easily fall when picking one domain for our online businesses:

#1. Do Your Initial Research First

Researching before you even start to deep dive into your domain name is a good practice that will be saving you future headaches.

The process is quite straightforward.

Using our old friend Google and opening an incognito window. Then on the search bar type, the main keyword(s) that you think will best define your business. Let’s say you are into the camping niche.

Keep this simple to one or two keywords maximum.

You will start to see the suggestions that Google is giving you right away. These are what most people are searching for. Once you find something.

Click on that search and see how others on the top results are naming their domain names. The first results you will find for this keyword “Camping” are recreation.gov; reserveamerica.com; koa.com…

If these results aren’t clear for you, then include an additional keyword in your search and keep doing this process until you find something.

That’s a good way to start this search quest for the “Perfect“ domain name for you. Now you have a more clear idea of what you can be looking for.

#2. The Keyword(s) Research For Your Domain Name

Now that you know how others that successfully rank on the Google first page top results (Not the Ads) are naming their domain names.

We can start and dive into the Keywords search volume.

This step will kind of gives you a bit more by verifying if these keyword(s) are still being searched recently and by how much looking at a monthly estimated search volume.

There are some free options like Google Keyword Planner or Ubersuggest for keywords research.

I’ll use ubersuggest and the keyword “camping” for this one because you don’t need to sign up:

Research results for “Camping”. On the top of the image, the default result is by Suggestions, followed by Related, and so on. Notice that I’ve clicked over the first keyword that resulted “Camping World”. Automatically I can see the websites that are ranking for this keyword “Camping World”.

The job now is learning how they are naming their domain name, doing, and talking about so if that makes sense to your business then, don’t copy word-by-word but here is a start for you.

There are tons of tutorials on YouTube that can explain how these tools work so I’m not going to into detail in this post here.

Once you found and verified one or two keywords that are in line with your business idea and the search volume.

Then apply this keyword(s) into your domain name!

Quick Note here:

Some online entrepreneurs will say that having relevant keyword(s) on your domain name is essential to help improve your website ranking score. But you must also be aware that it could also backfire on your website rankings.

That’s because of the content that you’re posting. If your content is really good and users don’t bounce back quickly from your website or don’t click on other links instead of yours as the first option. 

There are more search engines out there but Google owns the market by +90%. You want to please Google!

In the eyes of Google, that will mean that the content that you are trying to rank on the top positions of the first page is relevant. Otherwise, if you aren’t the preferred one, in this case, Google will be ranking you down.

If you want to learn how to write a successful blog post structure check out this post here: How To Write A Blog Post Outline That Getting 37K Organic Views Secret (I’ll redirect to open in a new tab window so that you can read it later).

You might also want to consider where is your target location.

Location & Audience:

If your intended audience is in a particular area, you may want to include that location in your domain name.

This will help to filter out any unintended audience outside your targeting audience scope by including specific (City, Town, Country…)

Let’s continue with the “How to choose a domain name“ next tip.

#3. Avoiding numbers and hyphens

This is important in order to avoid misleading typing errors when someone is typing your domain name into the URL.

These characters can make your site name harder to type or remember.

• For the numbers many times the user won’t know if they should type for example “10” or “ten”?
• For the hyphens will be simply easy to forget or disregard.

#4. Choosing A Name That Is Easy To Type

At this stage, we should already have a more clear idea of what our competitors are using and which keyword we should be focusing on.

This step is also quite similar to the previous one. Here you don’t want people to get confused by misspelling your domain name.

• Avoid the double letters;
• Careful with the words soundings;
• Misspellings of existing words or business names;
• Stay away from similar famous brand names.

I’ve thought that managed to pick a great domain name, plus was rich in keywords that made sense for my business and were available!!! 

This will make you laugh but guess is a great example for this step:

Domain Name wrote: onlinedadbusiness 😁👍

Domain Name read: onlinedeadbusiness 🤣😅

I’m a dad that is pushing thru my way online to create an online business. I don’t mean a dead business. 😂

This is exactly the opposite that I’ll be searching for…

So this is a big deal! Choosing the right domain name that makes sense to your online business is essential. Otherwise… 

#5. Keep Your Domain Name Short And Simple

This step seems repetitive but it really means that “Keep It Short and Simple”

After some research, I’ve found that according to Google itself when choosing an effective domain name:

#6. Be Memorable

Famous brands like Nike or Colgate, are completely different and don’t mean anything specific, aren’t keywords rich but are worldwide know for what their brand stands for.

They have created their keyword!That’s the power of a Brand.

Taking this as an example you can start to think about your domain name but don’t need to be limited to one word only.

This is important because you want whoever visited your website to be able to find you again by simply typing directly your domain name.

This will help if you want to establish a brand just like Colgate or Nike among other “Famous” brands today.

It will take its time and for the majority won’t even reach the same dimensions but for far the best option here!

Don’t think like David, instead think like Goliath’s here!

I know that David beat Goliath’s, but what I want to say is to think big and work hard, eventually, you might not be the next Nike or a Colgate but the yourself.com as a brand.

In case you’ve interest here, I leave a link where I posted about motivation and what holds us back: Online Business How To Start VS What’s Still Holding You Back (I’ll redirect to open in a new tab window so that you can read it later).

That leads us to my final tip here.

#7. Select An Appropriate Extension

Here is the thing, the “.com” is known worldwide as if there wasn’t other available for the URLs extensions.

The reason for choosing a .com, .net, .co, .org instead of others that are available in regards to an online business is due to misleading typing errors and thrust by the end-user if they see a .xyz or other.

Using an example to illustrate:

Choosing a domain: nurse.life

Users easily could type: nurselife.com or nurse.life.com

Once again all we want is eyeballs on our website. I don’t want to say that it is a bad practice to use other extensions for your domain name. If it does make sense to your business use them.

Just that as humans sometimes we take things for granted. Meaning that on our web searches, when looking for something online we may automatically add the “.com” at the end by human default. That’s what the majority that isn’t so web savvy will be doing!

Note: Alternative extensions do not negatively affect your search ranking according to Google itself.

Hope these 7 steps helped you with this choosing a domain name process.

Conclusion 

In this post, I’ve shared my personal experience and research online about the best tips for naming our domain name.

Learning these simple tips on “how to choose the best domain name“ for your business.

These are the 7 tips that I’ve concluded and could save you from future mistakes right from the start of this new online business journey.

• #1 – Do Your Initial Research First;
• #2 – The Keyword Research For Your Domain Name;
• #3 – Avoiding numbers and hyphens;
• #4 – Choosing A Name That Is Easy To Type;
• #5 – Keep Your Domain Name Short And Simple;
• #6 – Be Memorable;
• #7 – Select an appropriate extension.

Choosing a domain name is almost as hard as deciding on your online business! 🤣

We will always have that feeling at the beginning if we are making the correct or best choice while choosing this or that business idea to pursue. 🤑

Don’t overcomplicate this step. In case you have decided to go thru the keyword(s) research on the previous step here I’ll drop you a hack.

In case you already have a clear idea of what is your domain name. Act Fast!

There are free websites like leandomainsearch or bustaname that can help you with the task of brainstorming a domain name for your business, as long as you know what you are searching for. I’ve personally use NameCheap so that’s what I’ll recommend.

In case you have interest, I’m using NameCheap to buy my domain name and hosting. In case you decide to go via Namecheap I’ll be receiving a small affiliate commission.

Please leave me in the comments if this post was helpful in any way to you?

Appreciated that you have stopped by!

See you at the next one! 👋