Your Domain Name - How Important it Really is For Your Website

One of the most important steps in creating your website is to choose a Domain Name.

A Domain Name is the address of your website on the Internet. It consists of up to 67 basic characters. You can't use any special characters, e.g. #, &, etc. in your Domain Name, only letters and numbers. You can, however, use underscores and hyphens to separate the words.

Your Domain Name should be relatively short (three words or less) and also be easy to remember and spell. Imagine trying to find the following website on the Internet: rememberpetsthebeststoreontheinternet.com. This looks like a long version of some of the vanity license plates on cars - and you know how hard they are to decipher! If you use a long Domain Name, your visitors will have to really look hard to determine what your name really is.

It is a good idea to actually spell certain Domain Name words that people will use to search for your website. For example, if you want your domain name to be 'happiness through candy.com', you have a better chance of getting traffic by using the word 'through' rather than 'thru'.

But don't be surprised if you find a website called 'happinessthrucandy.com'. There are many people out there who will jump at the chance to register any misspellings of popular Domain Names and grab your visitors. So, try to register both Domain Names to be sure that you get all of the traffic.

Adding hyphens between the words of your Domain Name lessens the chance of people misreading your actual name. Consider the first above example of a long Domain Name. If you added hyphens it would look like: remember-pets-the-best-store-on-the-internet.com. Not a great choice for a Domain Name but at least it is readable and more memorable than the first example without hyphens.

You should always register your Domain Name with the extension of '.com' which means that your website is commercial. This is what most people expect to see when searching for your website although it is also a good idea to try to register your Domain Name with '.net' and '.org' extensions for added protection. If someone has your Domain Name ending in '.net' you could easily lose visitors which could lead to fewer sales.

It is relatively easy to register your Domain Name. There are many Domain Name Services who will check the availability of your selected Domain Name and, if the name is already being used, they will give you a number of available website names using your keywords in the Domain Name. You can then choose another name and register it as your Domain Name.

Most Domain Name Services have monthly, yearly or multiple yearly fees. They are generally inexpensive and you should take advantage of the many sales that are often offered. Just Google 'domain names' and you will get a large number of websites from which to choose to register your Domain Name.

Domain Name registration is one of the most important steps when creating your website

by Sharon Zolna - 5 Jan. 2009

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