Registering the right domain name
Registering the right domain name
(Or how I blundered and beat the domain hucksters!)
You may have read about the so called ‘entrepreneurs’ who make money by registering every domain name they can. They sell the names to genuine businesses at a vast profit – it’s perfectly legal but the politest word that springs to mind to describe these people is ‘hucksters’.
You may also have heard that you should register your name with every possible suffix like co.uk, .com, .net so that competitors don’t steal your traffic.
The truth is that there’s plenty of scope to get a good online identity and you probably don’t need every suffix available. Even better, you can outflank the hucksters and get better search engine results with this little known technique.
Let’s take my business name: Incise Communications Ltd. My website business address is www.incisecomms.co.uk. Unfortunately, www.incise.co.uk had been taken when I registered. Even worse, incisecomms doesn’t describe accurately what I do and is not a readable word.
Why’s that important?
Because search engine ‘robots’ read and recognise proper words. If your name is one that they can associate with keywords their visitors use, your site will get better search engine positions in some engines.
How did I get round my own naming blunder?
I registered www.net-marketing-help-4u.com and that’s the domain name I use to promote my mini-site about search engine marketing.
So if the name you’d prefer is already registered, try submitting it with a hyphen or two between the words. You may well find that it’s available and a better search engine option too.
You can do this at www.tucows.com or www.ukreg.com .
BUT - make sure your keywords are in the root of your domain, not the stem! For example, if your main keyword phrase is "cell phones" try to get a domain name such as "cell-phones.com" instead of "mobileuk.com/cell-phones.com." Some search engines will penalise sites with keywords in the stem.
HOW MANY SUFFIXES?
By suffixes we mean .com, co.uk, .net, .org and so on.
Why is this important? Well, the last thing you want is a competitor stealing a .com, .net etc version of your name. You could lose a lot of business.
But you could easily go overboard and register tens, even hundreds of domain variations.
So, before you break the bank, how likely are you to need different suffixes?
The first factor to consider is your geographic area of trading. If you’re operating in an international market with $multi-million online sales, you should protect your online identity and register the different options for each country in which you trade.
But if you’re operating regionally and your name is not particularly descriptive, then going beyond co.uk, .com and perhaps .net is probably a waste of money.
Certainly, if you plan to sell internationally or even just the US, you should register .com as well as co.uk.
REGISTER AT THE BEST PRICES
And don’t get ripped off. There are lots of sharks out there who’ll charge you too much for a registration. You can do it yourself at www.ukreg.com and many other sites.
Registering the right domain name - To learn more about this author, visit Paul Lock's Website.
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HOW TO GET A STRONG ONLINE IDENTITY
(Or how I blundered and beat the domain hucksters!)
You may have read about the so called ‘entrepreneurs’ who make money by registering every domain name they can. They sell the names to genuine businesses at a vast profit – it’s perfectly legal but the politest word that springs to mind to describe these people is ‘hucksters’.
You may also have heard that you should register your name with every possible suffix like co.uk, .com, .net so that competitors don’t steal your traffic.
The truth is that there’s plenty of scope to get a good online identity and you probably don’t need every suffix available. Even better, you can outflank the hucksters and get better search engine results with this little known technique.
Let’s take my business name: Incise Communications Ltd. My website business address is www.incisecomms.co.uk. Unfortunately, www.incise.co.uk had been taken when I registered. Even worse, incisecomms doesn’t describe accurately what I do and is not a readable word.
Why’s that important?
Because search engine ‘robots’ read and recognise proper words. If your name is one that they can associate with keywords their visitors use, your site will get better search engine positions in some engines.
How did I get round my own naming blunder?
I registered www.net-marketing-help-4u.com and that’s the domain name I use to promote my mini-site about search engine marketing.
So if the name you’d prefer is already registered, try submitting it with a hyphen or two between the words. You may well find that it’s available and a better search engine option too.
You can do this at www.tucows.com or www.ukreg.com .
BUT - make sure your keywords are in the root of your domain, not the stem! For example, if your main keyword phrase is "cell phones" try to get a domain name such as "cell-phones.com" instead of "mobileuk.com/cell-phones.com." Some search engines will penalise sites with keywords in the stem.
HOW MANY SUFFIXES?
By suffixes we mean .com, co.uk, .net, .org and so on.
Why is this important? Well, the last thing you want is a competitor stealing a .com, .net etc version of your name. You could lose a lot of business.
But you could easily go overboard and register tens, even hundreds of domain variations.
So, before you break the bank, how likely are you to need different suffixes?
The first factor to consider is your geographic area of trading. If you’re operating in an international market with $multi-million online sales, you should protect your online identity and register the different options for each country in which you trade.
But if you’re operating regionally and your name is not particularly descriptive, then going beyond co.uk, .com and perhaps .net is probably a waste of money.
Certainly, if you plan to sell internationally or even just the US, you should register .com as well as co.uk.
REGISTER AT THE BEST PRICES
And don’t get ripped off. There are lots of sharks out there who’ll charge you too much for a registration. You can do it yourself at www.ukreg.com and many other sites.
Registering the right domain name - To learn more about this author, visit Paul Lock's Website.
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