How to Choose a Good Domain
As you might already know, domains are still hot. A domain name represents your website and you. When you start a website or a blog, you of course want high traffic and people to know about it, and the only way to do that is with your domain name. You want to spread the word to your friends and to the online community. If you follow these simple guidelines, you can make sure you made the best choice when it comes to a good domain name.
First, you want to keep it as short as possible. The longer it is, the more chances there are to make typos. Short domains also have an appeal, people always like to make things as fast possible when they’re looking for something. By keeping it short, you gain an advantage.
Second, get the .COM all the time. The internet has been accustomed to the .COM from the beginning. A lot of people don’t even pronounce the extension sometimes since they think it’s implied. You can still be extremely successful with the .NET. You probably heard of Problogger.net. Darren Rowse has developed this .NET to one of the most popular blogs out there. No matter how popular, on my mind I always wanted to visit and know what Problogger.com was all about; by having the .NET, you are giving your competitor traffic to the .COM for no reason. Just recenlty, Darren finally bought Problogger.com for a few thousand dollars.
Third, do not use any hyphens or digits. The reason for this is you are most likely to use a multiple word domain unless you want to spend a few hundred thousand dollars, and it is just easier and more natural say or type letters only. Reaching for that dash on the keyboard doesn’t come in very often. Also saying “You can visit my site at XXXX “Dash” XXXX “Dash” XXXX .com isn’t very smooth.
Fourth, check for trademarks. The last thing you want is to have a website, developing it, and having even paid for the domain, and have a company take it for nothing since you infringed their trademark. Check the United States Patent and Trademark Office at http://www.uspto.gov.
Fifth, use Pool.com and SnapNames.com. Good domains, even multiple words, can come at a hefty price. And those that aren’t so high prime domains are often taken too, but the person who registered it isn’t doing much with it, by using these 2 sites, you can get most domains that are dropped for a fee, which is $60 plus yearly registration. If more people are bidding for the same domain, it will go to auction. However, from experience, even in auctions, the prices are generally much much lower as if a seller was actually trying to sell the domain.