When you are starting a business, getting the right domain name for your website is essential. If you get it wrong, it could hurt you for years to come. And with domain name squatters, your name might not be available. In picking a domain there are more things to consider than just the name, it could have Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) value for your website. Here are our five tips on how to get the best domain for your business.
1. Is your domain name available?
If you can register the core name of your company do that. And buy all of the extensions that are applicable to you. That means the .com, .net, .co.uk (if you are in the UK), and anywhere else that you do business. We had a customer who only picked up the .com and once established, a competitor of theirs bought the .co.uk, and used it in advertising against them. Save yourself the aggravation and buy them upfront so you have control of your brand.
2. My domain is available to buy from a reseller, should I buy it?
If your domain is available for purchase at a reasonable price, is older, and has a good SEO score (your web designer will be able to help you find this information out), it is most likely worth spending the extra money in buying that, as you will rank higher on Google and get more business naturally. Google gives weight to a domain’s age, so the older it is, the more valuable it is. You just need to consider the cost/benefit ratio, check the competition in your area, and make sure that your web designer can properly SEO your website so that it will rank naturally.
If the domain is new, has zero SEO value, and they are asking a lot of money for it, just walk away and find an alternative.
We help our customers make this decision all of the time, if you have a question if a domain is right for you, we can help, just contact us.
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Fun fact: The most expensive domain ever sold was sex.com
for $14 million dollars
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3. All of the extensions for my domain name are taken what do I do?
If your company name is Joe Smith, and joesmith.com and all of the extensions are taken, then it’s time to ask two questions.
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What is your service or product?
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Are you serve local, national or worldwide?
For this example, we’re going to use our clients Payne and Son jewellers who are in Oxford. They own payneandson.co.uk but if it had been taken, a good alternative would have been to just add their product or location to the end. The domains payneandsonjewellers.co.uk or payneandsonoxford.co.uk would also have been an alternative. Google likes it when you have keywords you want to rank for in your domain name.
4. What if all of the options for my name are taken? What do I do?
Don’t panic, there is always a domain available. We are going to use our clients Hall Personal Training for this example. Let’s say hallpersonaltrainers.com wasn’t available. They asked themselves what they wanted to rank number 1 for on Google, and that was ‘personal trainers oxford’. So they registered personaltrainersoxford.com. This is an excellent choice because it has all of the keywords they want to rank for in it, and is SEO gold. They have been holding the number 1 slot on Google for as long as we have been doing their website.
5. Extra domains, do I need them?
Registering extra domains can be useful for SEO purposes. For example, we own webdesignoxford.net, which just repoints to the Rare Form website, as we are interested in ranking for web design in Oxford. Our advice is to make a list of the top 5 keyword strings you want to rank for, buy the URL for the one you want to rank for, and repoint it to your core domain.
Getting the right domain is essential as it will be with you for as long as you are running your business. If you want some help in finding the perfect domain for you, just get in touch with your friendly neighbourhood Oxford web designers. Until next time…
Love in Web Design, Jeannie xo
Posted by: Jean Paldan
Mar 07, 2019