• Section: Increase Traffic - Category: Domain Name
• Written by Emma Kalson

With such a huge growth in the number of websites and theresulting difficulty in finding an available domain name, it istempting to grab the first one that sounds like it might do thetrick. However, a small amount of homework will pay bigdividends - follow the ten steps below to obtain the optimaldomain:

1. AVAILABILITY If it's not available you can't have it - simple!

2. COPYRIGHT Ensure that you do not breach copyright or infringetrademarks with your choice of domain.

3. EXTENSIONS It's widely acknowledged that the best TLD (toplevel domain) is .com. However, in the UK, web users are morethan used to .co.uk so this is equally acceptable for UKwebsites. If .com isn't available and you use .net instead (forexample), check that .com isn't either a competitor or that the..com site content is acceptable! Always try to get the .com,your country TLD or .net in that order. Web users are still notused to .biz or .info.

4. BE GREEDY! If more than one TLD variant is a

5. BE MEMORABLE Make sure that potential web users will rememberyour domain name and that they can spell it properly.

6. BE PRONOUNCABLE Try telling people your web address over thephone - can they understand what you tell them? Or do they giveup and try someone else's website.

7. BE DESCRIPTIVE If you are a new business, very few peoplewill remember or search for your domain name if it is yourcompany name. Try choosing a domain name that is descriptive ofyour products instead e.g. cheap.com. Trytesting it with a hyphen as well as using just one word.

8. OFFLINE MARKETING Use your domain name in your offlinemarketing literature and ensure that it is as visible aspossible. However, if your domain name consists of more than oneword, that isn't hyphenated, try using capital letters e.g.which is easier to read - littlefishwebdesign.com orLittleFishWebDesign.com? Domain names are not case sensitive soyour clients will find your site whichever version they use.

9. BUY YOUR DOMAIN FOR LONGER Search engines are now looking atless obvious information such as how long you have bought yourdomain name for. Domain names owned for less than two years arethough to be penalised, so buy your domain for as long aspossible.

10. OWN YOUR DOMAIN NAME If you use a web designer or thirdparty for your domain names, ensure they are registered in yourname and that you have a signed agreement with the company thatthey will release all the details (including password) to you,quibble free, if you choose to move to another design or hostingcompany.

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3.22 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."