Before getting your website online you need to get a good domain. This process can determine if you will have a successful website or not. Listed below are 5 critical events you need to undergo before you say i now need to engage web development with your web developer. These are:
- Industry Research
Researching the type of website domain you want and the industry it fits in. Does the domain you want to use lead a website user to understand what your website is about? Will the search for your domain lead to many confusing websites apart from yours? You need to strike a balance between communicating the purpose of the website and a domain that does not have much competition with similarly named websites.
You will ofcourse want to use a domain that possibly best describes your new website and the services (if any) you offer. There is two options around this, you may choose to build a brand on your own-maybe your name or some nice catchy word like Yahoo!-or you may choose to use a name that fits in the industry you are in. Like if you want to sell ladies lipstick, you may choose a domain like ladieslipstick.com ofcourse if its available.
Some of the deterrents of using this latter style is that you stand a chance of having websites selling the same products with very similar names. Thats a fail!
There is also the chance of finding the domain you would want is parked for sale by someone who thought it to be a premium domain and would want to cash in on it. Whether you will choose to use this method will depend on if you are keen on a cheap website domain or are willing to pay extra for that premium domain.
- Keyword Research
Keyword research is important if you are intent on a domain that will show positive response SEO wise. A domain that has relevant keywords gives you the website owner a big edge in google search. Keywords are the main items that make your website found, thats if they are in your content, and most advantageously if the keywords are on the domain the better.A simple way to get the keywords to use is this one.
Jot down what your website will be about, in a paragraph or two. Next, boil down this description into a maximum of 2 sentences. Don’t worry about covering all the details; just make sure you’re addressing the essentials of what your website will be about.
Now, take your short description and underline all the “key” words that describe your future website. Let’s take a specific (fictional) example:-
“Our website will be the leading source of information on weaving and knitting, providing knitting patterns and design ideas, an introduction to weaving, a guide to selecting and caring for looms, and a store for people to buy wool, yarn and books.“
You can then pick weaving, information, knitting, patterns, design, looms, wool, yarn. Once you have these, use the google keyword tool to search which words are most used in searches that relate to your keywords. Which one among them is searched the most. This should help you get a name that looks appealing, plus returns searches for the targeted traffic.
- Target group
Who are your target people for your website? Are you targeting the youth, women, men, girls, farmers, mechanics, doctors? Now there is a need to study these people and know what words do or don’t appeal to them. You don’t want to use a domain like broccoliforhealth.com when selling the idea of healthy eating among the youth, chances are they still haven’t gotten over being shoved broccoli down their throats by their parents. Choose wisely.
- Domain flexibility
What if one day you start a blog and call it wise spending (wisespending.com). The website then gets popular and you now want to sell your website clients some consultancy service or some good cologne. You see the domain will look awkward with you selling men’s cologne in a wise spending domain?
- Domain history
A domain may be available but that does not mean it has never been used. You may find a very nice website domain available, but probably it was previously some spam website that was banned by google in their searches, or one that was involved in porn. Search engines, like people have a long memory, and this could bite your behind without your knowledge.
If you really need some guidance on domain buying you would consider the advice of some experienced person, i could even offer this for free.
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