In this guide, we’ll cover all topics so you can make informed decisions when buying a domain name for your business. This guide includes some basic rules to follow and many useful tips. First, let’s start with a few terms that are commonly used when talking about domainn.

Basic domain terminology

What is a domain name?

The domain name is a unique name that is used to identify an Internet resource, such as a Web site. Or simply explain, this is the text you type in your web browser to load a website. Your company must have a domain name so you can find your customers and interact with you online. Examples of domain names are google.com, facebook.com, fiverr.com and so on. A domain name can only consist of letters, numbers or dashes.

What is domain extension or TLD?

TLD stands for top-level domain. That’s what you see after the dot at a domain name. For example .com for commercial companies, .gov for the US government and so on. 

What is domain registrar?

A domain name registrar is an organization or commercial entity that manages the reservation of Internet domain names. A domain name registrar must be accredited by a generic top-level domain (gTLD) registration and / or a country-specific top-level domain (ccTLD) registration. (Source Wikipedia) The Registrars are where you go to buy your domain. It is very important that you buy your domain from a trusted company, as the domains are your most valuable digital asset.

Some most credible domain name registrars:

ADVICE

Choose a registry that suits you best in terms of price and support and buy all your domains at this site. This is for easy management. Ideally, the registrar you choose is:

  • have no hidden fees
  • offer a free e-mail that will protect your privacy and privacy
  • Provides direct access to your records (so you know the domain is in your name), access to your domain’s authentication code and registry lock, and full control of your DNS settings

What is EMD?

EMD stands for exact match of domain. This is a term in the SEO section, which means that your domain exactly matches the term you are looking for. For example, if someone searches for the best pizza and your domain name is www.bestpizza.com or bestpizza.net, it will provide an exact domain match.

What is PMD?

PMD means having a pro-rated domain match. If we take the example above, someone types “the best pizza” in the search window. Your domain is called best-pizza.com, peppepizza.net or similar, in which case we speak of a proportionate domain match.

Domain name brainstorming and best practice

Having the right domain name for your business is important because it’s the way your customers connect with you online. That’s why the domain name determines how successful your online marketing efforts will be. Until recently it was difficult to find a good domain as most were used with .com TLD or at least the good one. However, since 2014 more than 1000 TLDs arrived. So you can pick a memorable and catchy domain name for. There are TLD’s line .bike .restaurant .attorney etc. You can visit GoDaddy and spy on some TLDs. If you want to know which ones are currently available, click on the Now Available tab.

Start with brainstorming

Here are a few questions that might help you – Does your company already have a name? What is your business? Who are your customers? Which sector do you work in?

Write down the answers and think of as many words as you can imagine. You can also ask friends and family for help. You can have some great ideas. Then briefly list and compile a top 5 keywords that best describe your business.

ADVICE

You can go to Fiverr for domain name suggestion. The professionals can give you some suggestions for your domain name. Surely you get some great ideas really cheap.

The best tips on domain name selection

Characters that you can use

As mentioned at the beginning, only letters, numbers and hyphens can be used for the domain name: A-Z, 0-9 and –

Make it easy and unforgettable

Try words that have a simple spelling. The shorter the domain name, the better, as it is easier to remember and type in. Try to maximize between 5 and 12 characters, and only when it comes to meaningful words.

Try to avoid hyphens

Hyphens are terrible for word of mouth marketing because the domains are much harder to spell out. Try spelling it to your friends, floridapizza.com and florida-pizza.com. Now you can see the difference. Also, a lot of the traffic to your business is lost because some of your potential customers will type in your domain name without the hyphens. Furthermore, a name with hyphens is very difficult to remember. 

Use industry keywords in the domain name or in the TLD

Since the Google EMD update in 2012, the exact matches of the domains are not that strong. However, entering the most important keywords in the domain name will support your SEO efforts. This is valid especially for a not so start competition. It can also increase your clickthrough rate on search results. The domain name describes your business and gives you the first impression of someone seeing your URL in the search results.

ADVICE

You can use the new TLDs to boost your SEO. For example, if there are 50 links with the same anchor text and keywords that point to your domain, such as, say, the best pizza online, there is a great possibility that you will be tainted. But if you have the domain bestpizza.online and put that in the anchor too, that will become your domain URL and your brand. So you will be shown as the hit once thanks to the links and a second time thanks to the keywords in the anchor text.

Make it link-attractive

Links are the most important part of your SEO efforts. Your domain should look good for other webmasters and bloggers. It should have some confidence and it should also be appealing. Think about whether you as a user would open a link on your chosen domain. For example, myrecipes.com looks much better than top100-recipes-ever.com.

Avoid copyright and trademark issues

You do not want to register a domain like googleland.com because Google will take it away if the domain becomes popular and profitable. 

Buying the domain

Now there is a domain name that is still free. You will buy this. Each register has different prices for the various TLDs and if they offer very cheap .com domains, the .at or .net would be rather overrated. Therefore, try to get as close as possible to the source. If you have chosen a .com domain, the big registers would offer you almost the same price. If you want a .ca domain, try the Canadian providers. You’ll probably get the best price. 

ADVICE

Try a Google search for a domain and the TLD that you have chosen, and coupon, for example – .com GoDaddy coupon.

Be careful not to sell services that you do not need. Especially GoDaddy tends to. You’re buying a domain and the checkout offers you hundreds of precious options you do not really need. If you buy a domain name, you can add to a number of additional features: whois privacy, SSL certificates and so on. These additional services can be very expensive. Look for special offers – or avoid them if you are unsure.

Check if the domain name is “clean”.

One last step before you buy the domain you found. Check if it’s linked to bad links or blacklisted. Not that you can immediately buy a domain name if it fits your business very well. Later, when you build your website, you can ask Google for a change. However, that would mean that someone has already made a bad name for the domain, because this change will cost a lot of time and effort for your online marketing. If you want to buy expired domains, you can take help from professional.

How to check if the domain name has already been used? Here are two tools that are very effective https://archive.org/web/ and http://whois.domaintools.com. In Archive.org, just enter the domain name and it will show you if there are any entries in the time machine. If there are any, that means that this name has already been used. Then in the top right corner, type the domain name you want to check. It will show you the available records in the database if the domain has already been registered. It will also show you how many owners have had this domain name and if it has been dropped before. Well, if both tools show that name has not been registered so far – Congratulations, go to your favorite registry and buy the!

If the domain already has a history, go first to Google and type in your domain name in the search window, for example yammypizza.net. If this is the first result, which is good, if not, there is a great possibility that Google’s domain has been punished. So, if you do not want to have a headache with your SEO, look for a different domain name. There are unlimited possibilities.