Just like in the real world where a strategic location plays an important role for the success of a brick and mortar business, a good domain name is one of the fundamentals to the success of your website. If you still do not know the characteristics of a good domain name, the followings are six characteristics that you have to look for when choosing a domain name.
1. Short
When choosing a domain name, you have to keep in mind that shorter is better, because people can easily remember a short domain name. Since those three, four or five-letter.com domains are already gone; the reasonable target is to choose a domain name between 5 and 20 characters, or not more than 3 words.
Example: Loan.com is an excellent domain name; StudentLoan.com is a good domain name; BestStudentLoan.com is an average domain name, but it is still usable; but YourBestStudentLoan.com is worthless.
2. Easy to remember
Although there are many bookmarking features, the majority of internet users do not use them. If your domain name is easy to remember, people can easily type your domain name when they want to search information from your website. If your domain name is complicated, the possibility to lose visitors is very high. For an example: Ghrbx.com is a short domain name, but it is very difficult to remember.
3. Easy to spell
You have to keep in mind that just one letter misspelling can bring your visitors to your competitor's website. Therefore, you have to ensure that you do not use strange letters combinations, words with difficult pronunciation, foreign words or anything that can make your potential visitors misspell your domain name. For an example, people will type coffeeshops.com instead of coffeeshopz.com.
4. Use a.com extension
There are several reasons why a.com extension should be your priority. The first reason, a.com extension is the most popular extension around the world, and it is what most people type after typing the domain name. The second reason, it helps to slightly reduce your promotion efforts. For an example, your domain name is SouthBeach.com and your competitor's domain name is SouthBeach.net. Even though your competitor's website might be better than yours, you can take advantage because you have the.com extension.
5. Descriptive
Visitors can come from anywhere. They can come from the search engines or referrals. However, one factor that can drag their attention to visit a website is how descriptive the domain name is. For an example, if your domain name is GamingGuides.com, most likely your visitors can guess what your site is about even before visiting your site.
6. Do not contain numbers or hyphens
Numbers and hyphens are two things that you have to avoid when choosing a domain name. People often type a domain name without numbers or hyphens. For an example, if your domain is Carpet-Cleaning-Limbong.com, most likely your potential visitors will type CarpetCleaningLimbong.com and ignore the hyphens.
As a conclusion, finding a good domain name can be very challenging these days, especially a domain name that meets the six characteristics mentioned above. However, do not get discouraged because there are many popular websites out there that only meet four or five characteristics, so having four or five characteristics is still fine. The six characteristics of a good domain name mentioned above are basic considerations that you can use when choosing a domain name for your website.
In the Social Media Age, You Still Need Your Domain Name Why Domain Age Matters
0 comments:
Post a Comment