Your choice of domain name cannot be overstated and is one of the most essential elements of building a successful website and managing a successful SEO campaign. By choosing the right domain you are automatically creating company and brand awareness online and boosting the likelihood of remembrance amongst your online visitors. Elements to consider when choosing your domain name:

  1. Unique Domain Name - choose a unique website domain to avoid have your website confused with existing websites or existing companies or brands.
  2. Include Keywords if Possible - have the top keywords for your domain to hand when choosing the domain. These keywords can be paired with prefixes and suffixes to create a high quality domain name and enable visitors to instantly identify what your website offers. For example if your business offers computer services in New York then the domain name www.newyorkcomputerservices.com is a great domain name.
  3. .com .com .com – . com is the most widely used domain extension and is (generally) automatically expected by online users. The only time to avoid a .com domain is if your website is restricted to a country and the country extension such as .co.uk (United Kingdom) or .au (Australia) or .ie (Ireland) can be used. Even in such instances it is recommended to register the .com name also so as not to restrict possible future online growth and expansion.
  4. Easy to Spell – ensure your domain is easy to spell to ensure visitors can find your site where they expect to find it.
  5. Easy to Remember – the easier your domain name is to remember the higher the likelihood of visitors returned directly and also promoting your website to others. Sounds obvious but is often ignored!
  6. Easy to Type – how many times have you mistakenly typed www.gooogle.com or www.googe.com instead of www.google.com? Avoid commonly mistyped letters such as “q”, “x” and “c” where possible to ensure visitors can find you as easily as possible.
  7. The Shorter the Better – the shorter the domain name the better it looks and is easier to remember, spell and type.
  8. Exclude Hyphens or Numbers -hyphens and numbers make a domain harder to remember, harder to type and expose a greater risk to visitors getting lost when trying to find your website. On top of this they just look plain ugly!

Consider all elements and then choose the domain name you are most comfortable with based on the domains available.