How To Choose A Domain Name That Attracts The Right Customers

In today's world, a website is one of the fastest ways of attracting attention to your business. And the first step to setting up a website is choosing a good domain name.

This is one of the things that often goes overlooked - how your domain name attracts or turns away customers. Let's look at a few tips.

1. Choose A Descriptive Domain

Your domain name should make it clear to your visitors what your website is about, even before they land on the site. Don't make them guess what you're offering.

For example, if your name is Veronica Smith and you own a hair salon, get a domain like veronicashairsalon.com instead of veronicasmith.com. Unless you're famous, or want to become that way, your own name isn't the best option as your domain.

Also, try to keep your domain name within a range of 13-15 characters, as shorter domain names tend to stick in people's minds. It also makes it easier for them to type out your web address in their browsers without too much head scratching.

2. Get A Domain That Includes Your Keywords

It's becoming increasingly important for business owners to have their websites indexed and ranked well in search engines like Google.com, MSN.com and Yahoo.com. And it helps this cause tremendously if you have a keyword-rich domain name. The reason for this is simple: Your potential customers search using specific keyword phrases to find what they're looking for.

If you'd done the research and used these customer-specific keyword phrases in your domain name, more than likely your website will be listed on the very first page of the search engines, outranking your competitors because you had exercised due diligence where keyword-rich domain names were concerned.

There are plenty of other things you'll need to do to get good rankings in the search engines, but your domain name sets the foundation for everything else. Also, avoid using dashes in your domain even if it makes it easier to find a keyword-rich name. Hyphens are believed to hurt your rankings in some search engines.

3. Can You Use A Different Extension Than .com?

Yes and no. You could use other extensions like .net, .biz or .info but it's not the best choice. Everybody knows .com but if your site uses something else, you're going to have to market it a lot harder to get the correct extension in people's minds. And if someone else already has the .com version, they'll probably get a lot of traffic from people looking for you.

How would you like your potential customers to end up on your competitor's client list thanks to the time and money you spend on marketing?

In some cases it makes sense to use a different extension, such as a non-profit society using .org, but generally you should stick with .com.

So, don't rush headlong into purchasing a domain name without first taking the time to research keyword phrases that would be a perfect match for your product or service. You can perform this much needed research at websites such as www.wordtracker.com, www.keywordtumbler.com and www.goodkeywords.com. It requires some effort, but acquiring the keyword phrases that are used by prospects and incorporating them into your domain name will pay off handsomely for years to come.

About the Author

Are you struggling to get your internet business started but feel lost in a sea of gurus and products promising instant riches? Visit the Internet Marketing Chaos site for a hype-free look at how to run your business. Visit http://www.netmarketingchaos.com for more helpful info

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