How to Choose a Domain Name
When you are staring a new site the first thing that you are going to want to do is choose a domain name. The key is to go with something simple that describes what you do, yet stands out from the crowd. You do want to put some time into figuring out your domain name because while it may be easy to 301 redirect to something else down the line, you'll be better off for branding purposes to find a quality domain and stick to it from the start.
Here are some of the important rules that I try to follow when picking a domain name for a new site:
- Shorter is Better - It is easier to type and easier to remember.
- Go with the .com - It's almost instinctive now for people to just put .com in when they go directly to a site. Some great sites have different extensions, but you are better off going with the flow here. You may want to also purchase other extensions and redirect them to your .com site. This prevents other people from buying a similar domain.
- Go with One Word - People are not in the habit of entering hyphens with the domain names, so if this site was jamie-faidley.com it would lost traffic to jamiefaidley.com.
- Easy to Spell - Why is it Flickr.com instead of Flicker.com? If you told your parents you posted the photos to Flickr what are the chances you don't have to spell it out for them?
- No Homonyms - You also don't want homonyms to confuse people either.
- No Numbers - Is it 4loco.com or fourloco.com?
- Keywords - It helps to have the keyword of whatever your site is about or selling in the domain, but it's not something to lose sleep over. There are some SEO benefits, plus clickthrough rates in the SERPs should be higher.
- Avoid Copyrights - I remember a guy who had the site MikeRoweSoft.com and was sued by Microsoft. Why take the chance of getting sued and losing your domain (and thousands of dollars)?
If you are wanting to know if a domain name is already taken, or if you want to purchase a domain to use then I prefer GoDaddy. They are cheap, reliable, and send reminders whenever your domain is coming up for renewal. Of course, I recommend signing up for the long-term so you don't have to worry about your domain expiring.