Important Tips to Consider before Choosing a Domain Name for Your New Site

When you’re in the market for a new domain name, there are several aspects of your search that, in one way or another, can influence your future online marketing efforts to a great extent.

As a result, you will need to take special care, from the first idea you have for naming your domain to the moment you make your payment for renting and registering your new domain, as the implications can be highly important for your future prospects.

Deciding Upon a Name for Your Domain

Domain naming is the first step to acquiring your new domain. There are several approaches to this task, however, some of the most essential guidelines you will need to keep track of are the following:

• If you have your heart set on a certain domain, but it’s already taken, look for similar alternatives that sound catchier for the audience you want to target (for example, if your business targets younger individuals, you can add engaging, yet relevant keywords to your business name instead of just looking for the mainstream “mybusiness.com”.

• Try to find a name that not only reflects the name and niche of your business, but also guides people intuitively to remember your site instead of typing in the web address of a competitor. This can be a tricky thing to do, but it really pays off when it comes to landing sales.

• You can also check dictionaries for words from different languages that are short and catchy, yet still have a close meaning to something associated with your business niche.

Considerations about Looking Up Domain Names

Now, if the domain you want to buy is new, there isn’t much digging you can do, and all that remains to be done is to buy it at a standard price and start working on your site’s optimization and search engine visibility. However, if your domain is one that has previously been owned by a number of different people or companies, then it is absolutely essential to perform a certain amount of research in order to know more about it.

Here are some of the factors that may be very important to consider while searching for domain name information:

• SEO backlink count and quality – the first thing to take into account when buying a new domain, the quality and PR rating of the sites that link back to it, as well as the number of inbound links are the most essential criteria that will help you end up with a valuable domain.

• The age of the domain – older domain names are more established, and it is generally considered that spammers tend to drop their domains quickly, so an older domain that has only been in use by one or two site owners might be a better choice.

• Domain name history – this is an extremely important aspect when it comes to online reputation. You don’t want the domain you choose to be formerly owned by someone who used it for online scams, for instance.

• The PageRank and Alexa site ranking associated with the domain at the time of the purchase – these are highly significant as well when you are looking up an older domain in the attempt to determine its true marketing and advertising value.

Pricing and Domain Name Extensions

Even though improved page ranking, reputation and domain authority can be gained easily if you choose your domain name wisely, it will still take some time until your website will start yielding results from these benefits, and until then you will need to pay special attention to the amount paid on your new domain.

The price you’d have to pay for any domain depends not only on its value and authority, but on the type of domain name extension you would require as well. In essence, depending on where you get your domain from, the prices can vary slightly, and some types of domains can be more expensive on some sites than they are on others.

For instance, the price for registering a .me domain can be more than $20 at some registrars, while if you search for lower prices, you might even find it at a cost lower than $10.

The differences for existing and expired domains are, of course, far greater, since the Google PR, backlink count and domain popularity will also play a major part there. The important thing to remember when looking up more expensive domains is to determine whether or not they are actually worth the investment and they can get it back for in the form of brand leadership or domain authority.

As you can see, it’s quite simple to select a new domain. The first step is choosing a name for it, then performing a simple domain name lookup, whois being one of the best places for it, and finally, choosing the right place where you can buy or backorder the domain without having to spend too much money.