What Makes a Good Domain Name?
Whether you are looking to start up a soon-to-be world famous blog, or you are looking to start your own business, a good domain name is an absolute must to stand out above the rest. This article is designed to show you how to pick the perfect domain that is sure to leave a lasting impression on your clients, readers or prospective audience.
Easy to remember and easy to spell
Look around the web at the most popular websites: Facebook, Yahoo!, ESPN, CNN, eBay and Twitter. What do these websites have in common? They are all words that are easy to remember and contain a certain spark, so that they stay in the mind of the audience. ESPN and CNN are obvious, as they are the online extension for television stations that are popular worldwide, but things like Yahoo! and Amazon have stuck around for years, in part because their names are unique and catchy. Notice how neither of the names is hard to spell. They do not include numbers or dashes, nor do they actually tell anyone exactly what they do. Deliberately confusing people about the spelling of your site, in the vein of using zeros in place of the letter "o", or the number 3 for the letter "e," is never a good practice.
Make it legitimate and buy the rest
A .com suffix is almost a definite need to really succeed on the internet. What is the last website you remember where you entered in anything other than .com at the end? Late night infomercials and MLM "opportunities" that use .biz almost scream "I am a scam, run away!" A .com suffix is only the start, though, as you should buy the .net, .org. .biz and even .xxx versions of the domain name. You would not want to make a site that really takes off, only to have a cyber-squatter register the exact name in a .xxx and make an elicit site riding on the back of your success. That is one thing that can damage your reputation.
Misspellings are a goldmine: bring your drill
Register all the misspellings you can think of for your site. If you register, for example, bigteddybearstore.com, you might consider buying the domains bigteddiestore.com, bigtedystore.com and so on. Do not let someone with less-than-stellar motives ruin your product's good name by funneling traffic to another site.
Follow these cardinal rules of domain names and, even if your content is less than stellar, your domain name is sure to catch on and stay in the mind of all those who visit. Write down a few ideas, and check the availability at any domain name register, such as Yahoo! and GoDaddy.