Domain/ web address is the most important thing of a website. Choosing the right domain will make you one step ahead of others. You must own your paid domain for your blog. The rankings you’ll achieve will be yours and in the long term, you’ll be allowed to sell it.
Domains are the base of the future business, so you have to be careful about choosing the right one. Once you setup one and started to market it, it’d be harder to change to another one. Here are some domain examples,
Meaningful domains
There could be two types of domains, meaningful and non-meaningful. Meaningful domains are dictionary word domains like business.com, news.com etc. These are highly brandable and most of them are already taken. Non-meaningful domains could be any thing which are not real words but could be made into a brand like, twitter.com, digg.com, sphinn.com etc. Non-meaningful domains are tougher to brand.
Your name as the domain
For an example, tamalanwar.com is my name as a domain. It’s my personal asset and it’s valuable for me only. A personal name is harder to brand unless your name becomes something bigger like being a celebrity, business person etc. To start a blog/ website, avoid your name as the domain because it’s harder to brand and much harder to sell.
Keyword-rich-domains
These are the new trends of the web. A domain with keywords in it: CheapAutoParts.com, EarnWithForex.net, Build-Your-House.com etc. Keywords separated with hyphens (-) works much for getting SEO benefits. Most of the times a funnel site is being created to capture the top places of the search term and then the lead is being sent to the main site.
Sma.rt domains
It’s the hot trend of today. People are having smart domains to find their favorite words. It all started when Del.icio.us jump into the web. More and more people started to create smart domains such as ma.gnolia, sta.rtup.biz, identi.ca etc. After the twitter trend, it became even shorter like, tr.im, ow.ly, bit.ly, is.gd, cli.gs etc. Getting a smart domain now is easy but you have to spends some money for this because an average smart domain costs around $100-$500/year (till now)
Domain with a commitment :0
Adding a special word in your domain will turn your blog definite. For an example if you put the word, “Daily” such as dailyblogtips.com -then your readers will think that you’re publishing daily articles. But as a blogger, you can’t write daily, so avoid this word. Adding a keyword in your blog such as, “Nokia” will limit your blog into writing about nokia cell phones. Instead of being definite, try indefinite like “Mobile” rather than using “Nokia.” Adding the word “blog” will make it a blog. There’s a word “blog” in the doamin blogkori.com -meaning that this domain is only brandable for blogs.
So what type of domain is ideal for me?
Meaningful dictionary word domains are better for your blog. When choosing a domain, ignore hyphens (-) and numbers. Try to get a .com domain. Creating a non-meaningful domain will make it sound like a social website and will be harder to market. Avoid smart domains also because it’s harder to remember the combination and it’ll sound like another URL shrtener service. If you want to set a target to sell your blog in the future, then avoid your name as a domain.
What you prefer, choosing your domain?
What are the things that you put focus when choosing a domain? How many domains you have now? Do you believe one of your domains will earn you a fortune in the future?
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Ya,Tamal Anwar.
Very effective post while choosing domain.
I also agree with u.
My current domain is http://www.textilemirror.com.
Its a online newspaper based on Textile, Apparel & Fashion.
I also bought a domain for my daily blogging.
http://www.electronicworkshop.net which is under construction.
Thanks.
@M. R. SOHEL, Both of your domains are highly brandable dictionary domains and it’ll have a future value. Just keep them for years.
These are great tips. Personally I try to make the domain name easy to remember. I always get a .com domain.
I always think is this marketable and catchy? That’s another thing that I ask myself.
I actually love brainstorming domain names.
I currently have 5 domain names.
But I keep my blog only on one domain. The other domains were bought for future projects that I will be working on.
All the best,
Eren
Eren- homemaking tips’s latest blog post..Fun summer things for kids to do – activities and ideas for a fantastic summer
@Eren- homemaking tips, Domains are the real-real estate and the more you have the better the benefit for the future. Domain should be catchy and short -but not enough short that it’s meaningless!
I agree with you. But sometimes common domains which include the keyword concerned are already registered by someone else. As a result, sometimes webmasters have to take a domain not including the keyword.
Aminul Islam Sajib’s latest blog post..Wanna write on Foreign News Agency
@Aminul Islam Sajib, A lot of domains are available till now and everydays lots of older domains expire. That means you get the chance to register them again. You can get any keyword domain by making it a longer one.
Very good and useful post! I wish I was smarter and did some research about that domain thing – how and what to choose, before I started to buy them few years ago… LOL
@IngaOz, This all research thing came these days when domains got extremely popular. Nothing to be worried, you have an old domain and that’s a great thing :D
I own three domains at the moment. I think the most important thing if you choose a non-meaningful word is to consider it’s length (the shorter, the better), ease of spelling, and whether it has been thought of or used before. When I think of words that would be nice for a domain, I google it to make sure someone else doesn’t have it as a username or something on other sites, as branding is difficult if someone already has yourdomainname at Twitter or other sites.
~ Kristi
Kikolani | Blogging, Poetry, Photography’s latest blog post..Fountain Park in Fountain Hills, Arizona
Yea, that’s right. But don’t you think people don’t like to type longer URLs and feel annoying? I’ve read in several blog posts that advised not to choose longer domains.
Aminul Islam Sajib’s latest blog post..Wanna write on Foreign News Agency
@Aminul Islam Sajib, Long-keyword-url’s are best to do good SEO for blogs. Yes you should avoid it for branding purpose.
Although my best earning domain contains a hyphen, the best is to have a domain without any hyphen… just one or two words. For instance, I just started shadecanopies.org and will start canopygazebo.org soon too. They’re great because of SEO. It’s very easy to SEOize such domains for primary phrases. Especially in MSN and Google it needs much less effort.
A hyphen makes it harder to rank for the primary phrase… my own experience.
Hyphened domains are easy to get and SEO friendly, these are the domains that make big money to affiliate earners.
The benefit of having your name as the domain is basically it mmotivates you. Your name is your domain name so your site will have to look good to reflect yoru positive image.
Azmi Jahan’s latest blog post..Virginity Rates by College Majors
Yes I do feel that and love the concept of Azmi Jahan ~your personal blog but nothing brandable.
Very Good Mr sohel
Thanks for the info – don’t forget to post about the Australian domain name industry – it’s really starting to take off… Thanks again