One of the first steps to starting your site is registering a domain name to call home. This is an important step, and there are many things to consider when picking your domain name. I mean, you are going to tell hopefully a lot people about this site, so it needs to be something you don’t mind saying a thousand times. You also want a domain name that ranks well for your subject, but how does your domain name effect your ranking in search engines?
First of all, a .com domain name, as opposed to a .info or .us will rank better overall. More quality websites have been built with a .com, and it is giving extra emphasis. Really, if you want the best rankings you would get a .gov, but those are a little harder to come by. I’m not saying that the other domain extensions are worthless, but it is something to consider.
What About Dashes?
Dashes should only be used if they have to be, and you will find better results without a dash. Search engines don’t penalize you for having 1 or 2 dashes in your name, but having more than that is considered spammy, and if you search for some high volume keywords, you will notice that most websites don’t have a dash and rank well. Plus, when you are telling people about your site in person, it is more clumsy to explain where the dashes are, and they are likely to forget by the time they get home.
Keywords
When picking a domain name, it is good to keep the keywords you are wanting to target. If you can include a keyword in your domain name, it will be much easier to rank well for that keyword. This can be overdone though, and you want to make sure you don’t just try to cram a bunch of keywords into a long domain name. A good rule of thumb is to just make sure your domain name makes sense, and it won’t be considered spammy.
Underscores?
I never use underscores in my domain name unless I am creating a programming related website and it fits the theme. When people use underscores in searches, they are usually trying to figure out some piece of code, and want the search engine to help find a page that explains the code they just entered. Google knows this, and returns programming related pages based on what you typed.
While using the underscore may help bring in more programmers, most of the time your visitors are going to be less allergic to sunlight and more prone to find your competitors non-underscored website. It just a better idea to leave the little fella behind, and join the dash revolution.
Numbers?
Again, it is really all about making sense. It might be better to look for alternatives if the online domain name available is widget343.com. Unless you are worshiping Satan and a 666 is needed, or smoking pot and a 420 is needed, its best to leave all the confusing numbers out of the mess. Who likes math anyways.
If you do see numbers in your future, then just make sure it is going to be something people don’t have to work to remember. Also keep in mind that if Google has to rank widget.com, against, widget2.com and widget334.com, widget.com will have a huge advantage. Widget334.com would have to be an amazing site to push to the top.
Conclusions
Picking a domain name requires a little bit of thought. Once you place your order, you are stuck with the domain name, or at least the bill. And once you build a site around a domain name, you are going to have to stick it out for the long run. So, take these ideas into consideration, come up with a few options, and sleep on it to make sure you end up with a performing domain name that you can really get behind.
1 Comments until now.
hey..i want to ask a question about keyword..what is keyword?if we blog about adsense..our keyword is ”adsense”?so lets say we have to include our keyword in domain, tittle and post..that mean we have to include the word ”adsense” in it?
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