How to Choose a Domain Name

Among the first things you need to do when setting up a website is to select and purchase a domain name. While purchasing a domain name is inexpensive and pretty easy to do, there are a few things you should know about choosing the right domain name for your site.

First, you'll want a domain name that gives your visitors some sort of idea as to what your site is about. This will make your site not only easier to remember and thus to visit. If your domain name, for example, is "www.AcmeEnterprises.com", who knows what you do? However, if Acme Enterprises makes widgets and has a domain name of: "www.BestWidgets,com", people will know exactly what your website is about and will likely remember the name (especially if they are shopping for widgets!).

This is also why it is important to use a paid web site host, so you can use your own unique name, and not the sub-domains that free web site hosts make you use.

Additionally, if you purchase your own domain name, you own it and can take it with you to whatever web site host you choose, as many times as you like. The domain name belongs to you. With a free web site host, your sub-domain name actually belongs to them.

So, if you find you need to move your website to a new web site host, all of your promotional efforts will not have been wasted, as your customers and web site visitors can still find you under your unique domain name.

You can use any combination of letters and numbers to create your domain name, but you can't use special characters except for hyphens. As to length, the name can be anywhere from 2 characters to 67 characters, but remember: the shorter and more creative your name is, the more people will remember it.

The domain name you choose can also increase your search engine rankings if you choose a domain name that includes the keywords which people are most likely to use when searching for your site. This is increasingly hard to do with so many websites now on the Internet and as Internet marketers snap up more and more of the popular phrases. However, search engines do give more weight to domain names that include keywords that are relevant to what people are searching for. As an example, www.howtomakecandy.com would get higher search engine rankings than www.sweettooth.com.

The three best domain name levels: .com, .net, .org. In recent years, many others have been added, such as .info, but stay away from these, as they will only get a fraction of the traffic of .com, .net, and .org domains. You should always try for a .com domain name first, as that is what most people think of when they think of a website. That said, you should also consider purchasing the .org and .net versions, just to avoid someone else buying it and getting confused with your name.

Once you've picked a domain name, you can check to see if available to purchase by going to any of the web site host sites. Just do a Google search for "web site hosts" and pick one. They all have a search box for checking domain name availability.