I’ve been talking to a lot of clients lately about domain names. My last post was about the mechanics of registering and managing domains. But its worth discussing how to choose them as well.

What makes a good domain name for a business?

First and foremost, you need to consider how you want to present your business to the world. How you position your company is very important, and I won’t try and distill decades of marketing work on branding here.

But when you go online, you also have an opportunity to use your domain to help position you from a keyword perspective.

Let me give you an example.

Our new client Leith has had her business online for years at twelvetribes.net. We are helping her with her new site at twelvetribesincense.com.

Why advise her to change her domain name?

Keyword research via Wordtracker reveals that incense is very popular. Like all popular keywords, the primary word (or phrase) is supported by a wide variety of related words. Here is a quick excerpt of the predicted search volume for incense related keywords:

• incense (441)
• incense sticks (225)
• incense burners (224)
• colored incense sticks (129)
• resin incense burners (119)
• and the list goes on and on, into the long tail

Check keyword popularity using the Free Keyword Suggestion Tool from Wordtracker.

Now you don’t have to have a keyword in a domain to rank well for it. But it sure helps. Even if Leith doesn’t get to page 1 on incense (and she will eventually), using incense in her domain will help her rank on all of the associated phrases in the keyword family (which easily accounts for over 1,000 searches per day). Popular keywords such as incense are like icebergs - you see the popular word at the top, but there is an enormous amount of related activity underneath it.

For Leith, incense is what her business is about. Adding incense into her domain name not only tells her prospective customers more about what she does, it will help her rank for the entire keyword family for the search engines.

I should also point out we identified other keywords that are important for Leith. You don’t have to have every keyword in your domain name. Using twelvetribesincense.com/anotherkeyword/ is still a good basis for ranking on anotherkeyword.

So when we look at an online business, we always consider options for the domain name. You may find a great opportunity to improve your online presence.

Domain names without or with hyphens/dashes

What if a non hyphenated domain name you want is taken, but the hyphenated version is available?

A lot of people advise that a non hyphenated domain name is best. And I agree. Best if you can get it. But a hyphenated name is very good also, if it has important keywords for you.

The reason people recommend non hyphenated domains is mainly because it maximises exposure to type-in traffic. And people can recall it more easily (if they know your name, they may just type it in as a URL to try and find you).

In the case of incense, a lot of people will simply type in incense.com and see what comes up. You can see incense.com has been bought by a domainer, who is relying on type in traffic that will in turn deliver clicks on AdSense ads - this is known as a Made for AdSense site - or MFA). What a waste.

Now making money out of type in traffic is one way of running a business on the web. Personally, I think it is a very low yield way of doing things.

If you are running a proper business, you are more interested in finding qualified traffic from referral sources (other websites) and search engines. In that case, the type-in factor just isn’t that important.

So I see incensesticks.com as being being best, but incense-sticks.com as being a very close second (and no surprise, both have MFA sites on them).

Interestingly, when you look at a domain name purely from a search engine perspective, the hyphenated version could be better (assuming there are only 1 or 2 hyphens):

• Matt Cutts from Google tells us that Google doesn’t algorithmically penalize for dashes in the url.
• Google tells us about hypens in domains that using separators is a good practice, but add that “even without punctuation, there’s a good chance we’ll be able to figure out that bigleopard.html is about a “big leopard” and not a “bigle opard.” So Google is saying that from a search perspective big-leopard.com is better than bigleopard.com (but don’t panic, they work hard to get it right when hyphens are not present).

For me, these comments from Google show that if your business stands to gain more from search than type in traffic, then hyphenated is best. Maybe an SEO guru can enlighten me here if I have missed something.

My theory is that many early adopters on the web came to it from a technical background. They will slap up an MFA site on incense.com because they aren’t in the business of incense. And they have written a lot about domain name selection - from their perspective. As more and more ‘real’ businesses come online - that is, people in the incense business - I think the emphasis will swing around to choosing domains that work mainly for referral and search traffic.

What about .com vs .net and other extensions

Stick with .com if you can, although there are a few exceptions to this.

If you want to rank better for searches from your country, use your country specific extension. So in Leith’s case, if her main aim was to market her incense to Australia, she would choose twelvetribesincense.com.au as her primary domain. Note she would still buy twelvetribesincense.com and redirect it to her primary site.

If you can’t get the .com you want, or the hyphenated .com variant, what about .net? If search traffic is very important to you, maybe. But using .net introduces lots of variables. You may have to explain your address more of time (”yeah, that is .net, not .com”), and perhaps people and/or search engines don’t trust them as much. I personally don’t use .net names. Maybe you would purchase them to stop others setting up MFA sites on the back of your mega brand. (Domain registrars love instilling this kind of fear into people).

Summary of my recommendations for choosing domain names

A few recommendations:

• think about important keywords and whether you should include them in your domain
• don’t be afraid of hyphenated domains if you are running a proper business
• stick with .com if you can

Have you received advice about domain names? What has influenced your decision making?

Run a business online, then you definitely need to buy and manage your own domains.

You can outsource a lot of things. But not your domains. (Or your email list, but that is another post).

Business owners need to control:

• purchasing domain names
• renewing domain names
• using name servers to control where Internet traffic (web and email) is sent

Does this sound too technical for you? It doesn’t mean you have to do it yourself. You can get one of your staff to do it. Just don’t outsource it to whoever does your website for you.

Then again, maybe your philosophy is trust in the universe. So you don’t lock up your business premises. You leave your wallet lying around on the bar. If you trust in the universe this much, then sure, let someone else buy your domains for you.

Why is this so important? If you invest in a domain without owning it, someone else can simply turf you off the domain and take the value for themselves. It doesn’t happen all the time, but its pretty easy to manage your own domains, so why take the risk?

How to purchase an unregistered domain

You purchase unregistered domains from a domain registrar. You establish an account with them (usually free), and you can login to purchase and manage your domains. To find out if a domain is already registered, just do a search.

A .com domain can cost anywhere from $5 USD upwards. Update - registrar names deleted. I use a US based registrar and pay $6.50 USD for a .com domain. I use an Australian registrar for .com.au domains. [Grrr: My Australian registrar has always had problems with support. Most things are self service, but anything that isn’t is always frustrating. Their support has always been glacial - but this has risen to a new level, with support stonewalling an auth code request so I can transfer a domain to a client - unbelievable. Do you know a good registrar for .com.au domains (my definition of a good registrar is one with a reliable, self service website)? If so, please let me know.

How to purchase a registered domain

If you want a specific domain someone else has already registered, you can try and buy it from them. In some situations (for example, if they have a domain with your trademark in it), you have legal remedies. But mostly, its a negotiation. And domain prices are going up.

You can also find domains for sale, either outright or by auction. It is a commercial transaction, and market rules apply.

Why purchase a domain?

Buy the domains you need for your business. Sooner rather than later. A reason I like the $6.50 domains is that it makes it easier to rationalise buying several domains around a keyword.

I said before, domain prices are going up. Buy some domains for the grandchildren. $6.50/yr - if you get a few wrong, so what. A few right could be worth a lot of money.

How to renew a domain

You’ll usually get a reminder notice from the domain registrar. But don’t assume you will. Don’t let them expire unless you enjoy tedium and/or disappointment. Someone may easily snap up domains that are not renewed. There is a whole community of people who pore over lists of lapsing domains, and swoop on the valuable ones as soon as they become available.

How do I set name servers?

Name servers link a domain name to an IP address that handles your web and email traffic. By setting the name servers for your domain, you are controlling which servers can manage web traffic, and which servers can manage your email traffic.

Typically when you choose a hosting provider, you set the name servers for your domain according to their instructions. Nameservers usually look like ns1.yourhost.com and ns2.yourhost.com (and maybe ns3.yourhost.com).

Just about every domain registrar lets you login and change the name servers for your domain. Just look in the support notes if you can’t figure it out, it will be there.

Registrars often provide hosting services themselves, or offer parking services. If you have already chosen your host, you don’t have to purchase any additional services from the registrar to get your website running (although you might choose to). Be careful here, as they can be quite good at suggesting to you that you do.

Summary

Own your own domains. Come to grips with how to buy, manage and renew them. Its a vital aspect of running a business online.