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Choosing the right domain name

advernationadvernation subscriber Posts: 3
    So you need a domain name for your brand new internet business. You
may even have some cool ideas for a new domain name combination that
will really impress your friends. Question is, is your new domain name
going to help your business or hurt it?
What could be simpler
than choosing a domain name right? Wrong. There are a number of things
you need to consider and research before you register your favorite
domain name.First off, what is a domain name and why would I want one?A
domain name makes our lives much easier when surfing the internet. You
see, all computers on the internet are actually referenced with what is
called IP addresses. On the internet, IP addresses are four sets of
numbers that serve like street addresses allowing two computers to talk
over a network. An example of an IP address is the one for                Google.com.
It is 216.239.39.99. If you enter this IP address into the address bar
of your browser it will bring you to Google`s home page in that very
same way that typing www.google.com would get you there. Unfortunately,
we humans have difficulty remembering our phone numbers let alone so
many digits for all kinds of sites. That`s one of the main reasons
domain names were invented.Domain names make it easy for us
humans to remember how to find a site. Most people know Google.com and
anyone familiar with the internet knows that to reach Google, you
simply type www.google.com in your address bar and you are transported
to their website. The same goes for Disney.com, Microsoft.com, CNN.com,
etc?Now you would think that choosing a domain name would simply
be a matter of choosing something that is unique and that people would
remember. The problem with that approach is that most of us don`t have
the money needed to turn our name into a brand name on the mass market.
Most of us need to rely on our prospects reaching our website through
other means. The best of these are search engines.Choosing a
good domain name for your site starts with the main keywords you have
chosen to focus on for your website. Before you launch your business,
you should conduct some preliminary research online to determine which
keywords have the most traffic and the least number of other websites
competing for that particular keyword. Some tools that help in this are
the Overture keyword suggestion tool and Wordtracker.com. Both of these
tools will give you a rough idea of how much traffic each of your
chosen keywords will likely get each month. This helps to determine
which keywords to focus on.Should you choose a domain name that includes your main keywords?In
most cases, the answer is yes. Google and to some degree Yahoo both
give you a small boost for your domain name. If your domain name
happens to contain your targeted keywords, your domain name will help
you in your quest for higher search engine rankings. Now if you do
everything else wrong, having your main keywords in your domain name
will not magically catapult you to the top of the listings. Many other
parts of your site must be working for you as well. Other things you
can do to improve rankings are beyond the scope of this article.Choosing a keyword rich domain is a smart business move.For
some sites, it could be the edge they need to move up a few spots in
the search engines. When choosing a keyword rich domain name, you may
want to consider hyphens between your keywords. An example is
cheap-airline-tickets.com. Current research trends for Google and Yahoo
suggest that hyphens are the only way to separate keywords within a URL
that will give you a rankings boost.Why not simply choose your
company name? Simple. Is your company a household name? Are you so
dominant in a category that people have stopped referring to the
generic name of your category and use your brand name like Kleenex has
for tissue paper? If so, register your company name. If not, register a
keyword rich domain wherever possible.You may be thinking, "But
I already own a domain name that is my company name. Should I go and
register a new domain and point it to the same site? The short answer
is no. Years ago, you could improve your rankings on search engines
simply by setting up lots of doorway pages and having them all link
back to your home page with all kinds of domain names. That tactic
nowadays can backfire. You are better off optimizing individual pages
within your existing website than you are creating a whole bunch of
"fluff" sites just to increase rankings.The technique I suggest
above is really best suited for brand new business ventures. If you
still have not registered your domain name for that special online
business you are about to start, then make it keyword rich wherever
possible. If you have already launched your business, you`ll just have
to take advantage of this information next time you start another
online venture. Advernation is an Organic Internet Marketing Company Located In New Yorkhttp://www.advernation.comadvernation9/8/2008 7:57 PM

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