How to Choose a Domain Name

How to Choose a Domain Name

April 27, 2011

By Nicholas Ramirez

So you’re all set. You have the concept for your web property and you’re ready to build. There is just one more thing, the domain name. Seems pretty strait forward doesn’t it? You just call it your company name. What if your company name is Acidophilus Research Incorporated or you don’t have a company?
I’d like to take you through a mock brainstorming session similar to ones our team has internally when qualifying potential domain names for new websites. You may discover during the process that people working on the same project have radically different interpretations of the objectives a site seeks to accomplish.

Does the domain have parasitical value?

Parasitical value refers to gleaning spiffs in the form of traffic, ranking or general interest by analyzing and mimicking successful query trends in your domain. Seeking parasitical value can be extremely useful when building smaller websites designed to “take a portion of the existing pie” through long tail, albeit more obscure, query terms.
The idea is to look at what is already being searched for under your topic structure and align existing interest with your content. Stay away from terms that are too competitive and make sure there is an overlap between the selected term and your site’s overall objective.
Examples of domains with parasitical value:

• wholesale-candy-store.com
• candystorecandy.com
• sugar-candy-store.com

Does the domain have brand value?

A domain’s brand value refers largely to the human intuitive element. How will the domain be identified, remembered, referred to, passed along and searched for? As far as domains are concerned, brand value is best pursued when seeking user loyalty.
Brand value is key in marketing and as such needs to be easy to remember. Traditionally the trendier the better but be careful! Creating a brand in the world of web 2.0 can be a double edged sword. With a thousand new startups a day capturing every snappy little phonic available it may become difficult for the masses to distinguish their Iubo’s from their Sampa’s. If you don’t remember it, nobody else will either.
Examples of domains with brand value:

• twitter.com
• theonion.com
• foursquare.com

Things to avoid when choosing a domain name:

1. Don’t end a word and start the next word with the same letter. (e.g. spellinggnat.com) You will find much of your traffic falling to (spellingnat.com).
2. Don’t just take the alternate .tld of a successful brand. (e.g. ebay.net) You run the risk of being litigated. Plus this is just lazy.
3. With few exceptions, don’t make domains too long. (e.g. wouldyoureallyremembersomethingthislong.com)
4. Don’t sub odd characters for letters. (e.g. 0ddl0vew0rd5.com)
5. With few exceptions, don’t chop all the words and string them together to shorten your domain. (e.g. Decorative Paint Store to decpaisto.com)

What about cases where there is a company name but it is excessively long?

Let’s take the sample at the beginning of this post (Acidophilus Research Incorporated) ewww. How can we shorten this up? Query data shows that there seems to be a lot people searching for “acidophilus” but it also shows that a lot of people are searching for “acidophillus” and “asidophilus” which tells us that people are having a hard time spelling acidophilus. Possible synonyms could be bacteria, micro organisms, microbes orrrrrr germs. The word “incorporated” is not succinct or descriptive so let’s leave it off.
Possible solutions:

• germresearch.com
• germscience.com
• microbugs.com

Whatever you choose, make sure your domain is punchy, pertinent, succinct and above all else relevant in concept or principle to the purpose of your subject matter. That pertinence combined with a little parasitical and brand value will go a long way in establishing your web property into a presence people will recognize and seek out.

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