Choosing the right domain name can have a huge effect on your search engine rankings and it pays off to do the proper research before purchasing a domain. In this article I will go through several factors to consider before purchasing a domain and the best way to do your research.
Factors to consider
Who is my audience?
Knowing your audience will immediately affect the domain name you are looking for. If you are targeting an audience in a specific country then it is often best to get a domain with a country extensions. For example is I was only looking for visitors from Australia then I should get a .com.au domain name. However if you are looking for visitors from all over the world then you want a top level domain (TLD) name such as .com / .net / .org.
Keyword Match
If you want a to create a niche website then you want a direct keyword match for your domain name and this significantly helps your rankings. I use Market Samurai’s domain name tool to enter in a keyword and check what domains are available. If you can’t find a direct match or at least a high keyword density you may have to change your domain name.
Research
What’s available?
Many people think that all the good domains are taken and there is nothing left. This is true in some regards as almost all of the premium domains are taken but this doesn’t mean you can’t get them. There is big business is selling domains and for the right price you can get the domain you are looking for.
Domain Face is a website dedicated to finding aged domains and also is a great tool to find new ones. Aged domains range in price from $20 to $2000+ and it depends on the perceived value of the domain, the domain age, page rank, established back links etc.
Domain Extension
I always look for a top level domain (.com .org .net) as they tend to rank better in search rankings but people have had success with .info and other extensions.
Buying
This is the easy part and with so much competition domain names are very cheap to buy. I recommend using GoDaddy
for domains as they are one of the biggest companies and it is very easy to transfer domains if you sell your website.
The other thing you have to considering when buying a domain name is whether you should get a branded name or a keyword match domain. Its best if you can have both of them. For example my website seoexpertforyou.com is great example on how it fits both. It has my keyword seo expert in it and it also has something people will remember because I am the seo expert for them. I have also seen many other domain extensions rank in the U.S. such as .cc and .co.
I’ve seen .co rank as well. There are some great tips listed above. I’ll have to look into Market Samuarai as I never really used that tool before. Thanks for the suggestion.