2005-04-29T19:41:00.000-07:00

Domain name registration

Domain name registration is the first and importatnt step to create your website. Therefore, register a domain name with a well known, respected, ICANN accredited registrars. ICANN stands for Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers; it keeps track of all domain names registrations and makes sure all the domain names rules are followed. And no, you don’t have to pay a lot of money for this, many trustworthy registrars offer quite cheap domain names.

Buying domain names is a relatively simple process; the important part is to chose a good one! Here are some useful hints on how to chose a domain name:

1. A good domain name should be easy to remember and to spell. If you want your visitors to come back sometime make sure that they rememer the address!

2. Choose a short name for the same reason as above – it is much easier to remember a short and simple name.

3. Register domain names that are related to the subject of the material you are going to post on your website. For instance, if you are opening an online store, it is best to choose a name describing the product(s) you plan to sell.

4. Try to avoid putting 2 instead of “to” or 4 in place of “for”. That kind of cheap expressions might decrease the credibility of your website.

5. Register domain name that doesn’t contain the number zero (“0”). It resembles the letter “O” and will most probably confuse your visitors.

6. Don’t register a domain with hyphens (“-”); it makes is difficult to remember and spell. This rule is not universal, however, and sometimes it is appropriate and useful to used hyphens.

7. Purchase domain names with .com, .net and .org extensions – these are the most known ones and awaken more trust among public. (especially check for the availability of .com first).

8. Don’t take the plural forms of the domain name (e.g., books.com); since the chance of the visitor forgetting to type the "s" is high!

9. Try getting a generic domain name! (e.g. homework.com). You will get a considerable traffic(many visitors) without making any promotion. However, it’s extremely hard (if not impossible) to get such names.

10. Don’t buy domain names with double spellings (e.g. color and
British “colour”) – you will lose many visitors.

11. It might be a good idea to buy domain names starting with letter “a” or “b” because, many web directories list the websites (including Yahoo!) in alphabetical order and there is a high chance that your website will appear on top!

12. Include keywords related to the subject of your website in the name to increase the chances of getting a good search engine ranking. In this case, it is ok to use hyphens since search engines read each word separately.

13. Avoid trademarked names! Using copyrighted names in your domain name is unethical and may result in legal actions.

14. It is not wise to use suffixes like “my” or “the” in the domain name, like mywebsite.com, because, people easily forget them and therefore can’t get back to your site!

15. Ask around before making your final decision. See what other people say about it – a name that sounds good enough to you might be hard to remember or pronounce for others.

Domain name registration tips