Registering a domain name – important considerations

When you are setting up a website for the first time, one of the more important considerations is the domain name you will use. Probably as important as the domain name you will use for your website is the company that you use to register the domain. Here we will explain how you can choose a domain name that matches the needs of your business as well how to choose a domain name registrar that will be suitable for your type of business.

Choosing a domain name

There are two ways to choose a domain name for your website; a branded name or a keyword focused name.

Keyword focused domain names

Keyword focused domain names are exactly what they sound like, choosing a domain name that incorporates the use of keyword phrases, or terms that you would like to rank for in search engines. Let’s say, for instance, that you want to offer writing services on your website. If going the keyword focused domain name route, you might look for “writingservices.com”, “freelancewriter.net” or the like.

There are two benefits to choosing a keyword focused domain name:

1. When somebody visits your website or finds your website from performing a search in their favorite search engine, they will likely know exactly what your website has to offer.
2. In terms of search engine optimization (SEO) purposes, having a domain name focused on your target keywords will automatically help you to achieve higher rankings for the words used in your domain name. You should take note that even if you go the route of a keyword focused domain name; this does not imply that you will achieve top rankings for these keywords, only that this can help considerably with other optimization methods in place.

Branded domain name

Opting for a branded domain name is recommended when you are looking to establish yourself as an “authority” on the group of people that you are targeting. The real benefit for using a branded domain name is that if you have worked to brand yourself then people will automatically associate a certain product or service with your brand name.

Some examples of branded names, though not all necessarily domain names are Dominos, Subway, eBay, Google, Yahoo, Digg, etc. When you hear some of these names, you automatically associate a certain product or service with the name. When you hear Google or Yahoo, you think of a search engine, when you hear Dominos or Subway, you will likely think about pizza and sub sandwiches and so on.

Choosing a domain name registrar

Possibly more important than choosing the domain name itself is choosing a registrar for your domain name. A registrar is more or less the records keeper for your domain registration information, and registrars hold the physical “address” of your website so that it can direct visitors to your website, somewhat similar to the way that the post office directs your mail to your physical address.

Arguably, the most important aspect of acquiring a domain is being sure that you have complete control over it. Some web hosting companies will register your domain name for you, though in most cases this is not the recommended course of action. When you take an interest in a particular domain name, you want to be certain that you have full control over this domain name at all times; sometimes when a web hosting company registers your domain name for you, you lack the element of full control, something that you might end up regretting later on down the road.

Popular domain name registrars

There is one domain name registrar that is exceedingly popular on the internet today:

Godaddy.com

Undeniably, Godaddy.com is the most popular domain name registrar on the planet. With nearly three times the amount of domains registered than their closest competitors, Godaddy.com is licensed to offer domain registration for .com, .net, .biz, .info, .name, .mobi, .jobs and .asia domains. Because of the popularity of Godaddy.com, you can find a plethora of coupon codes for domain registrations with Godaddy; even though their pricing rather competitive even without the use of coupon codes.

Namecheap.com

Namecheap.com offers domain registration services as well. Though Namecheap is technically a domain registrar offering services through enom.com, they are a popular alternative to Godaddy for many webmasters and we thought that they deserved a mention due to their continually increasing popularity. Namecheap.com offers competitive pricing on domain registration as well.

Finding a domain name that is best suited for your business will help you in the long run with your website’s marketing, and choosing the proper domain name registrar will work to protect your newly acquired asset (your domain name). If you’re new to the idea of running a website of your own, making these important decisions before you decide to purchase can not only save you some money later down the road, this decision can save you some headaches as well.

Published in: Web Hosting