How To Choose Domain Names In 2022
Are you planning to build a website to increase your online presence on the internet? whether it is a blog, e-commerce, or any website that you can help your business, it is very important to have a domain name for it.
I started to build this website almost a decade ago, As a beginner at that time I had little knowledge of what things I needed to do, I even changed domain names a few years later.
There are a lot of things that I wish I knew from the beginning to avoid some mistakes that I did especially in choosing the right domain name for my website.
What is a Domain Name?
In more simple terms, a domain name will serve as a name and an address for your website when someone wants to find your website, they will use the name of your domain to search on the internet.
How to Choose Domain Names
Choose a Domain Name based on Your Niche
When choosing a domain name always consider that a domain must always be related to your business, For example, if your business is an online shop and you sell laptops make sure to choose a domain that is something related to laptops.
If you have a physical store or a brand, make sure that you have a domain name that has the exact name of your physical store.
A website that has a domain that is in line with the content has always an advantage in search ranking, we in SEO call it “Domain Relevancy”.
Keywords On Your Domain Name
Another thing that you should look for is the keywords, choose a domain with an exact keyword for your business.
This is one of my greatest mistakes when I was just starting a website, I chose the domain Mirageportal.com, and I’ll ask you this When you saw my website domain name what would come into your mind?
Nothing right? you will not even think that my website is a gaming, tech, and domain name website, which is why I made a lot of effort just to rank this website of mine in a search result, It takes me about three years just to have a good ranking.
Instead of Mirageportal, I should have chosen Gamersportal or Gamehub, something like that, and will help a lot with SEO.
You can also use SEO keyword tools to find keywords that have a huge amount of traffic, and use these keywords on your domain names.
The Shorter The Better
Another thing that you should consider is choosing a short domain name, I highly recommend that you should never choose a domain name with more than three words, I recommend sticking in one or two words only when choosing a domain name.
The reason why you should use a longer domain name is that Google always favors shorter URLs in search ranking.
When publishing a post or article, your domain name will be included in your article URL, and when you choose a domain name with more than three words, it is hard to create a short URL into it and it is bad for your website SEO.
Choose the Right Domain Extensions
Domain extensions have different uses like.COM which stands for “commercial” It is the best extension for websites that generate a huge income like blogs or e-commerce.
While a .ORG is short for .organization a domain name that is best used for a non-profit website.
Another extension is .NET is for .network, This domain name is the best if you want to start a website for network services. There is also some popular domain extension.XYZ that are relatively cheaper and web3 ready.
If you want to start a blog website or e-commerce I recommend always choosing a . COM extension for your domain.
Catchy, Easy to Pronounce, and Easy to remember
If you’re searching the internet you might have noticed that all websites on top of search results are easy to pronounce and catchy.
Think about this, Your visitor is highly important, and how can they remember your website if in the first place, your domain names are hard to pronounce?
Remember YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram are all domain names that are easy to pronounce which makes a lot of people remember their websites easily.
Avoid Numbers and Special characters
Looking at all the famous websites on the internet, we can learn a lot of things about choosing domain names by just observing them.
You will notice that it’s rare to see a popular website with numbers or special characters on its domains right?
It is because numbers and special characters are hard to remember compared to words and thus can lead to misstating your domain name by your customers, and what will gonna happen is that they might give up and find an alternative for your website.
What Is The Best Place To Buy Domain Names For Your Business?
After choosing the right domain name for your business, the next thing that you’ll need to do is to register and buy your domain name.
I recommend that you choose Namecheap for registering and managing your domain names, for the reason that it is cheap compared to some domain name registrars, They also have some helpful promo for your first domain, which can save you some money.
In addition to that, it was also easy to manage domain names on Namecheap, It has a clean interface on which domains can easily be managed even for beginners, I’m a domain investor and Namecheap is what I only use for managing my domain names.
There are also a lot of tutorials on the internet even on YouTube about Namecheap because a lot of users use Namecheap even Youtubers.
Get a .COM for just $5.98 on Namecheap
However, there are certain times when your desired domain names are not available for registration or taken, so what you should do when you are taken?
It goes like this when a domain name that perfectly suits your business or company is taken, there are two possibilities, it might be used by other websites or it was purchased and kept by domainers.
What Are Domainers?
Domainers are domain investors that buy a high-quality domain and sell it for a higher price, when a domain of your choice is not available for registration on Namecheap, there are huge possibilities that it was held by domain investors and might be for sale in Domain Name Marketplace.
Before you move into the domain name marketplace make sure you have an account first at Namecheap, Registration is free so don’t worry.
Then when you purchase a domain from the domain marketplace it will be transferred to your account at Namecheap where you can manage your domain name, and can be renewed annually.
What is a domain Marketplace?
Remember domain registrar is different from a domain marketplace, A domain registrar is a website where you can register and manage new domain names, whereas a domain marketplace is a website where you can find high-quality domain names that have been registered by domainers.
Those domains are high-quality domains that have been hand-picked by experts in the domain industry. Those domains are expensive compared to when you register new domains in the Domain registrar.
The price ranges from $20 to $100,000, or even a Million dollars, it might be unrealistic that domain names are sold at that price.
If you are new to domain names but believe it or not some domains are sold at that price, and huge companies are willing to buy domain names at that price range.
Why do you think that some companies are willing to spend a huge amount of money just to buy the domain name?
It was because of domain relevancy, and that was proof of how crucial choosing a domain for a business is, and they knew that domains can contribute a huge success to their online business.
If you want to buy some high-quality domain names here are some examples of websites where you can find one, but you should prepare your wallet since some domains in the domain name marketplace are pricy.
Go Daddy Auction
Go Daddy Auction is one of the biggest domain name marketplaces, You can find countless domain names with buy-now options, make offers when you can place your offer, and when the owner accepts your offer the domain is yours, and a domain auction that usually starts at $20 if your lucky you can win an auction with just $100 for high-quality domain names.
Dan.com
Like the Go Daddy auction, you can also purchase some domain names on Dan.com, you just need to type in your desired domain name and see if they are available in the marketplace.
One of the great things about Dan.com is its fast transfer, wherein you can get your domain faster compared to some domain name marketplaces.
By the way, when the domain name that you purchase takes a few days to arrive, don’t panic it’s completely normal if you buy in the domain name marketplace, just make sure that you always send a follow-up email to the marketplace customer service.
There is another domain name marketplace where you can buy domain names, just make sure to do proper research before you dive in and buy some domains in other marketplaces other than the two that I recommend.
That’s all for today, Take a look at some of my articles too.
