A well-chosen domain name makes a world of difference to visitors, even if it’s just a string of characters in the eyes of search engine crawlers and indexing bots. Unlike many people who often have the same name, you can be sure that no two websites can have exactly the same domain name. Domain names are unique worldwide. Unless a DNS server experiences a pharming attack, your domain name will always take you to your chosen website and not anywhere else.
Once a website starts receiving regular traffic, changing the domain is not a good idea because many visitors have likely bookmarked or even shared links to the domain. Even if you implement the redirect, certain programs won’t necessarily follow it and it will lead to a lot of broken links, because now the content is at a different address. This can be avoided by carefully deciding on a domain name before you buy it.
1. Be sure to omit prefixes
If you go to gmail.com in your browser, you’ll be taken to accounts.google.com if you’re not signed in to your Google account, or mail.google.com if you’re already signed in. What’s worth noting here is that although gmail.com and google.com are indeed two different domains, they will eventually lead you to a subdomain of google.com and that choice depends on your account’s login status.
Therefore, do not include prefixes such as “mail” or “members” in your domain name (unless your company actually includes such words in the company name). You can add prefixes like subdomains and/or folders on your website later.
If you include the prefix in the domain name, you leave visitors confused as to whether there is more to your website than the stated function (such as checking mail or accessing certain members-only resources). Omitting the prefix leaves your website open for further expansion without linking it to a specific service. Note that even including “www” is a bad idea, as many visitors may already type it in their address bar.
2. Get ready to think creatively
Domain names are bought all over the world around the clock. You may even find that the domain you want has already been taken. This does not mean that you give up your chosen name. With a little creativity, it might still be possible to have a similar name.
For example, if you wanted to reserve example.com and it’s already taken, you can try combining certain words with it so that the essence of the domain name doesn’t change. For example, exampleCorp.com or MyExample.com, etc. This way, you can still leverage your brand and avoid naming conflicts and confusion with existing websites.
3. The shorter, the better
Although there will be many visitors who will come to your website from search engine results, social sharing links/email, etc., there will still be many who will have manually entered the URL in the browser’s address bar. Long domain names discourage people from visiting your website and are also hard to remember.
This is also the reason why short domain names, 3 or 4 characters, fetch a high price in the premium domain secondary market. At eWebGuru, we also deal with premium domains. These domains are bound to receive a lot of traffic.
Short domain names also make it easy for you to share your website identity yourself. Think about the limited space on a business card. However, you could also use a link shortener that will mask the real brand identity of your website.
4. Balance between uniqueness and flexibility
Sometimes a domain name easily reveals the purpose of what it does, while other times it leaves visitors guessing what the website is about. Both approaches have their pros and cons. Suppose your domain name is Yahoo.com and visitors have never heard of it before. Just from the domain name, it’s hard to guess what the website is about.
On the other hand, if the domain name is something like BookMyShow.com or MakeMyTrip.com, even first-time visitors can get a good idea of what the website might be before visiting. However, from a website owner’s perspective, these are generic domain names, not brand names.
Generic domain names tend to avoid the use of any type of brand name that could otherwise lead to copyright issues. While they clearly convey the purpose and are also likely to be found by visitors in search engines by searching for keywords that could be found directly on your domain name, they make it somewhat difficult for the website to expand to other unrelated sites. areas
This is not the case for branded domain names like Yahoo.com. There is no clear purpose associated with the domain. A brand domain makes it less confusing if the website decides to offer additional services that have nothing to do with how the website started.
5. Think long term, not short term
Buying a domain name is in many ways similar to buying land. The land can be developed and redeveloped over time, but ownership of the land will still rest with you, unless you actually plan to sell it. At the same time, once your plot starts receiving regular visitors, it will be very inconvenient to tell all visitors to go to a new address if you decide to move.
When starting out with a website, it’s easy to overlook that the domain name will also be part of your professional email address. At eWebGuru, we provide free email addresses as well as email forwarding with domain names. Think about the impression your chosen domain name will create when used as part of an email address.
Similarly, if you plan to do affiliate marketing with your website, many brands require the TLD to be a generic TLD, such as .com, .net, etc., rather than a country-specific TLD, such as .uk or .in. etc When reserving a domain, you may be tempted by the cheaper cost (as well as higher availability) of country-specific TLDs, but then regret it when you discover your website has been disqualified by brands looking for affiliates, not because of the content itself, but because of the TLD.
Ending
Check out the different types of domains we offer at eWebGuru.com here: https://www.ewebguru.com/domain-registration.html. We offer affordable domain name registration, renewal and transfer services.
