Choosing and Checking
the Availability of Domain Names

When most people build a website they normally check the availability of domain names through a domain name registrar and take what they can get. They come up with a cool name that their friends or spouse likes and off they go building a website. Does this sound familiar? Don’t feel bad, most people do not understand the importance of domain names when selecting a name for their website.

Your domain name is your internet address, the same as your phone number and street address are unique to the offline world. Your domain name separates you from the 120 million or so websites on the internet today. Consider it your piece of virtual real estate .

A lot of thought, research and analysis must go into the selection of your domain name, do not pick a name because it sounds cool and definitely do not use trademarked names of other companies in your domain name, this is called cybersquatting . A good domain name is both descriptive of the products or services you offer and easy to remember.

Company Domain Names
Should you use your company name or a keyword rich domain name for your website? How about a combination of both. It’s not written in stone that you can have only one domain name per website. In fact quite the opposite is true.

Many companies today use multiple domain names. Using multiple names allows you to redirect domain names to either your homepage or any other page within your website. If you sell shoes you could have the name GirlsShoes.com and redirect it to either your homepage or directly to the girls shoes page within your site.



Search engines use relevance when searching websites. If your company name does not have the products or services you offer in the name, it will not be considered relevant. Even if you’ve been in business 50 years selling shoes as; Smith and Son’s, it is not as relevant as Smith and Son’s Shoes.

The domain names Shoes.com, ShoeStores.com or ChicagoShoeStores.com would be more relevant and receive higher placement in the search engines resulting in increased free-targeted traffic If your company name is not relevant for the search engines consider redirecting that name to your main website.

Research Keywords and Keyword Phrases
When people search the internet for information, they search by keywords or keyword phrases. Websites whose domain names include relevant keywords tend to rank higher in search engine rankings for those keywords than websites that don't.

When you have an online business, you must target the keyword phrases your customers use to find your product or service. You have to find these keyword phrases and use them in your marketing.

Most professional marketers use some type of keyword software to research their keywords and keyword phrases. Wordtracker is considered to be the ultimate keyword tracking software on the market today.

Wordtracker will help you determine how many searches are made each month for your chosen keyword phrase and give you an estimate of how many other websites are competing for the same keyword. And best of all; they offer a Free Trial Version

This software enables you to see what people are actually typing in the search bars when they are trying to find a product or service on the internet. This is especially important if you are operating in a niche market or home business .

Next create several keyword rich domain names using the keywords you have chosen. It’s best to create several potential domain names before you check the availability of domain names and find out some may not be available.

Availability of Domain Names
After you have decided on several possible domain names, you need to check the availability of domain names through a domain registrar such as Go Daddy or any of the major domain registration companies. If the name is available simply register it and the name will be ready when you begin to develop your website.

If it is not available, don't be discouraged; there is a huge domain name aftermarket where you can buy Expired Domain Names and Used Domain Names.

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