Picking A Domain Name (URL)

There are two types of domains:

Keyword Based Domains - these domains, as the name suggests, incorporate keywords that your blog is about in them. This is good for a number of reasons. Firstly it communicates something to your readers very quickly with regards to what your website is all about. The other positive is that  Search Engines take a good look at the words in your domain name when deciding what your blog is about and how to rank it. As a result if you’re after search engine traffic then these types of names can be worth looking at.

Examples of some websites with keyword based domains are www.sierravistawebdesigner.com,  www.seniorpicturessierravista.com,  www.getrichslowly.org,  www.getrichquick.com .   

You get the idea – these are just a small amount of keyword rich domains out there in the world wide web.  But the beauty of keyword rich domains is that they index very well with the search engines.  And chances are they will get found.  

A tool that we have used to find a keyword phase is the GOOGLE KEYWORD TOOL (which is part of Google Adwords).   You should be logged in to Google, this will make your searching experience easier.   Type in your phrase or keyword in the search box   The tool will show many keywords and keyword phrases along with the the COMPETITION with the word or phrase and the amount of the GLOBAL and LOCAL searches.  

Here is an example of a search:   I searched the term “Life Coaching.”    That term has HIGH COMPETITION, and has 301,000 Global Monthly Searches and 165,000 Global Local Searches.    Too high of COMPETITION to even look to see if that domain name is available.  

Next on the line with KEYWORD IDEAS reverse the competition search from HIGH to LOW – so you are seeing the keywords and keyword phrases with LOW COMPETITION first. 

The first three phrases that come up are:

• how to be happy with your life:   33,100 global monthly searches/14,800 global local searches
• how to be happy in life: 368,000 global monthly searches/110,000 global local searches
• how to be happy with life:  368,000 global monthly searches/110,000 global local searches

 My next step would be to go to NAMECHEAP to see if these domains are available.   In this case none of the .coms are available.    I think if at all possible sticking with a .com is the first choice.   So I would move down the keyword list to see if anything else was available.  

These phrases are how people will search for answers (or products) on the internet.  Securing a great keyword rich domain will help your website get found.

Brandable Domains - these domains might often have some relation to their topic in terms of their feel or sound but are much more about creating something memorable that can become an identity in and of itself. In terms of traffic strategy – these blogs would be suited ideally to developing a blog that is aiming to build a community of loyal readers. Of course these blogs can also do very well in search engines but this is usually for other reasons (keywords in URLs are just one of many factors). Blogs that have these types of domains include Boing Boing, Gizmodo and Dooce.  In fact if you look at Technorati’s Top 100 blogs – you’ll see that most of them have brandable names and not Keyword based ones.

Wowsers Web Design recommends using NameCheap for the purchase of your domains.  

 Click the banner below to get started in purchasing your domain name.