Selecting A Great Domain Name

One of the first things you must do to get the process of building your website is to select a domain name.

The “domain name” is the primary name of your website. Some examples include:

• yahoo.com
• google.com
• BryanEllis.com

In just a moment, I’ll tell you how to determine whether a particular domain name is currently available. But first, let’s discuss how to select a domain name.

You’ll have to make a decision about two issues when selecting your domain name:

• The primary “NAME” portion (such as “yahoo”)
• The extension (such as “.com” or “.net” or “.info”, etc.)

The NAME Portion

The NAME portion of your domain name is very important, particularly for search engine inclusion. You can choose any name you like. However, for best results, please follow this guideline: Make your domain name something that creates interest/curiosity all by itself. This is important because sometimes a search engine user will make a decision about which search engine link they’ll click based on the name of the domain. And if a person is searching for information about “foreclosures”, they may be more inclined to click on a search result from a website with the word “foreclosure” in the domain name than a more generically named “real estate” website.

For example, here are some of the domain names I’ve registered:

• FreeRealEstateTraining.com
• FreeForeclosureTools.com
• HaddonPlaceApartments.com
• GeorgiaHomeBuyers.com (I no longer use this one)

The point is this: If a person sees any one of these domain names in a search engine results, and if they are searching for information related to the topic of the website, I’ll have a better chance of getting search engine traffic with names like what appears above.

I do not recommend using your company name as the name for your website (at least not your first website). This is because unless your company is already large enough that people are searching for you using your company name, then it will likely be less productive to name your domain after your company rather than naming your domain after your service. Therefore:

• “ForeclosureBusters.net” is probably better than
• “ThompsonRealEstateServices.com”

The Extension Portion

There is a plethora of choices for domain name “extensions”. Here are some of those that are currently available:

• .com
• .net
• .biz
• .info
• .org
• .us
• .eu
• .me

There are several others as well. However, I recommend that if at all possible, you should get a “.com” name. I’ve had good results with “.info” names also.

Other Tips

You may wish to run a few searches in Google using terms related to your service or product. This may stoke your creativity for new domain names.