Coming up with a Domain Name

Deciding on what your domain name will be for your new site can really be a tricky thing to do, but once you come up with a good domain name you could set yourself up way ahead of the competition.

The best domains have the following:

• It has a memorable name that is easy to remember (no one will remember a site that has dashes or hyphens)
• They are short (short domain names are less known for being full of spam and are easier to remember)
• It is not hard to say (the harder it is to say, the harder it is to remember)
• It is not too hard to spell (you don’t want people finding other peoples websites that are similar to yours)
• They are not to similar to competing domains (this is important to note because it will probably be much harder to pass them if you choose the same name)

While these things are important for any domain to have, not a lot of people know how to actually come up with theses so called great domains! I have dealt with this problem many times myself and have realized that finding the best domain name could be split into 3 different steps: Brain Storming, Elimination, and Research.

Step 1 – Brain Storm Good Domain Names

The best way to do this in my opinion is to just take out a blank sheet of paper and just keep on writing down different ideas for you new website domain name. I would start off by writing down your top keywords down and trying to incorporate those into a domain name. The reason why you want your keywords in your domain name is that you will be more likely to show up for that term on Google. For instance, dogtraining.com will probably show up before petstuff.com for the term “dog training”. Finally, you want to make sure the domains you pick are unique and original.

Step 2 – Domain Elimination

There are many things you should watch out for when picking a domain name. Here are some domains you should look for in your list to eliminate:

• domains with no keywords in title (without keywords your domain is pointless)
• domains that are not easy to remember
• domains that are not catchy
• domains that end with anything other than .com (you should only get .org or .net if you really REALLY want a particular keyword)

Step 3 – Researching the Market

This part is essential to coming up with a domain name because without this, you won’t be able to see if you domain is profitable. Once you have created your list of keywords and domains, try plugging in some of those keywords into the Keyword Tool by Google Analytic. You will see exactly how many people search for the term daily, monthly, and yearly as well as find out weather the term is competitive or not. For the most part, you will want to find a term that has the traffic you want (for most starting bloggers this would be below 5000 visitors a month) and is either low or medium competitive (low is better for starting out.

From there you can take the keywords and type them in on Google to see if these top sites for each term seem reputable or not. Basically, what you are doing at this point is seeing if you have a chance of getting to the top of the list. If all of the top pages are from big sites with a high reputation, that keyword is probably not the best fit for you.

In the end you should have a short list of keywords and domain names that you can work with. From here you should do some more extensive testing. Maybe do a survey or buy a few sites and seeing which one does best. Whatever works for you.

What if the domain I choose is already taken?

This is also a big hurtle for many bloggers. The fact of the matter is that finding the best domain name is not easy! Even the most experienced people will take days, even weeks, to find the right name. If you end up getting stuck yourself, just keep on working at it and some ideas will eventually cross your path. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment below.