If you have made up your mind on opening a website for your business, the next step for you is to buy domain names. With over 324 million domain names registered in the first quarter of 2016 alone, the choices available when you want to buy domain names are no longer extensive. You may have considered many factors that affected your domain name’s choice but it is not uncommon to see that individuals who want to buy domain names end up with choosing another alternative domain name because it has also been taken up by another business or individual. That said, it is important that you buy domain names now because in the years to come, the domain names that you prefer may already been taken up or priced at an inexorbitant price.

A domain name is much more than just an address. It is your unique identity as well as your business’ image. This is more so the reason why your domain name must reflect the objectives and goals that you are trying to achieve with your business. Many good domain names owned which are owned by Amazon or Apple are thriving well with their choice of a simple domain name. It is important that you select a domain name that fits your business as this is vital to your success. If you select the wrong domain name, you will have to change it which will definitely hurt your business after all the work that you have put into building your brand. This article will outline several critierias that you must take into consideration when you buy domain names.

1.Always choose .com

Let’s be real. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Research shows that over 75% of websites has the “.com” domain. Over the years that the Internet has existed, it has been proven that it is the most preferred extension and has highest brand recall. If your choice of domain name is not available when you try to buy domain names, you can opt for other top level domains available which may include .net, .biz or .info. However, do keep in mind that there are search engines that will not list any websites without the “.com” extension to avoid spam websites or low quality content. If you are not left with any other choices when you want to buy domain names, go for trusted top level domain names such as .net or .co. You can also opt for country specific top level domains such as .uk for United Kingdom or .us for United States. This way, you get to appeal to more regional prospects when you buy these domain names as search engines are more inclined to show country specific top level domains in the search engines.

Most consumers are also very accustomed to the use of the .com extension. The Internet has been around for over 20 years and yet people are still questioning why the .com extension is the most trusted extension around. For all of you budding entrepreneurs, it would be best not to challenge this because it would require a huge amount of resource for you to build around a domain name that does not have a .com as a domain extension. Remember when you want to buy domain names, that the most brandable domain name will always be .com especially if you look forward to expanding your business. It will serve as the main landing point for prospects to your business so you must take your choice of domain extensions seriously if you are serious about your business. In short, always buy domain names using the .com extension because it can prove to be a good investment for your business.

2.Use keywords in your domain name

Consider using keywords when you are buying your domain name because this can help your search engine optimization (SEO). To understand how this works, you must understand what the search engine ranking process is all about. In short, search engines use bots that crawl on random websites constantly. They will visit websites and index these pages. Index simply means categorizing and organizing all the information shown on the websites. Then, these bots will file and store these information so that when someone is searching for it, it can be found immediately. This is how billions of websites on the Internet are organized to allow a quick and efficient search time for an average user.

Now that you know briefly how search engines work, you will need to incorporate keywords into your domain name. If you are not going for a targeted approach you buy domain names, you ideally want to search for a domain name that has targeted keywords which are relevant to your industry. As an example, if you are a business focusing in eyewear, your keywords may be sunglasses, spectacles or prescription glasses. Tools such as Google Keyword Planner and Ubersuggest are free tools that you can utilize to help you find phrases that you should target when you want to register domain names.

This will help to improve your rank on search engines. However, you must keep in mind that you don’t want to buy a domain name that is crammed with keywords just to rank on search engines. If you choose to use keywords, it has been proven that using it at the beginning of your domain name is where it will create the most impact for SEO.

3.Keep your domain name short

Richard Lazazzera, the content strategist at Shopify introduced the KISS concept for individuals looking to buy domain names. It stands for Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS). Keeping your domain name short and easy will avoid the risk of your customers mistyping your domain name. Try keeping it within one or two words. Based on the 100,000 top websites, their domain names only have an average of nine characters. It is important that you do not go overboard with the domain length when you want to buy domains. Longer names only makes it much harder for your prospects to recall your domain name. You may lose out on valuable traffic which is why it is vital to keep your domain name short.

Length matters when you want to buy domain names. The fewer the characters that your domain name has, the easier it is for your prospects to type and remember it. Long domain names usually get cut off by search engines as they may not fully display the domain name. You can check with your friends whether your domain name is easily remembered or easily pronounceable. Your aim when you buy domain names should be to purchase domains that are easily communicated or written. Your target audience shouldn’t have to stop or pause for too long when trying to recall your domain name. Other tips to keep your domain name short includes staying away from hyphens, easily misspelled words such as doubled letters. Hyphens are also often a sign of spam domains which you don’t want to be associated with.

What now?

Act on it fast. Buy domain names as soon as you can because high quality domain names sell out very quickly. Domain names are pretty much the assets of the World Wide Web and grows in value even as you read this article. Let’s recap on what this article has talked about. Firstly, always choose .com extensions. It is a no brainer that this is the most preferred extension by consumers worldwide so don’t try to reinvent the wheel and just go along with it. Next, we talked about how the use of keywords in your domain name will improve your visibility on the Internet and optimize your search engine discoverability. Lastly, the length of your domain name is important to avoid you losing out on valuable traffic due to mistyping or misspelling of your domain name. With all of these guidelines in mind, you are now able to buy domain names that can impact your business positively and increase the success factor of your site.

You can find more domains on https://www.shopify.com/domains

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