Website Basics-Choosing a Domain Name by Richard James

The first step in building a website is in the choice of a domain name. Whether you are a doctor, lawyer, plumber, aluminum siding salesman, or if you want to start up a website to feature your family dog Spot, the entire endeavor begins with the choice of a domain name.

The next logical question you might ask, is “What is a good domain name?”. The answer is, it depends. For example, if you are the person above who wants to build a website devoted to Spot, the family dog, then the answer is that the choice of a domain name really doesn’t matter. Why? Because you probably don’t really care about gaining a lot of traffic to your website, your site is probably only something you are going to produce for family and friends, to let them know about the latest goings on in Spot’s life. In a case like this, it does not matter whatsoever if you find a domain name like “ourdogspot.com” or not, since most likely you will only be giving out the website address to a few friends and family and maybe Aunt Tilly in Toledo.

In fact, in a case like the above, you could call the site anything you wanted to, “dogdiary.com” or even “catsdontlikespot.com” or something even as silly as “lookatthis.com”, which really has nothing at all to do with the subject matter of the website itself. The point is that in a case like this, there is no real concern with getting a lot of visitors to the website other than friends and family and Aunt Tilly in Toledo, so there is no real harm in naming the website ANYTHING, because you will be giving out the website address to a select few people. BUT……

What if the website is for business? What if I do want it to attract attention?

The simple answer is, it pays to have a domain name that reflects your site or business. If your website is about car parts for example, do you really expect the average web surfer to remember how to get to your website if it is named "bobsthingsforsale.com" or some other unrelated name? The best strategy is to find a domain name that directly relates to your business, whether it is the business name itself or related to the category of business. For example, a car parts website should have a domain name like carparts.com or bobsautoparts.com, something that immediately associates the domain name with the theme of the site. It’s all about branding, and making a lasting impression on the target audience or customers.

You can find domain names by checking the WhoIs database on the internet. While there are any number of places on the net to do this, we have conveniently placed a domain name search engine on www.StartMyWebsiteToday.com for this very purpose. After searching the domain name, the results given will instantly show whether or not the domain name is available, and if so, give you the option to immediately register it. If not, several alternative domain names will be proposed, to help you fine tune your search, or possibly giving you an acceptable alternative domain name to register instead.

In the next article, we discuss strategies for choosing a domain name, long or short, hyphenated or not, and generic or brand names.

About The Author

Richard James has been a contributing author for this website and is an acknowledged expert in the field of domain names. He can be found on the internet at this website: http://www.startmywebsitetoday.com This article is copyrighted, please do not alter in any way.