So you want to register a domain name? Let me share with you a few tips when registering a domain name. Be it an Ecommerce website like Digistore Ecommerce, a blog or an ordinary website, you will always need to have a domain name (www.example.com).

A domain name is a unique address by which people type in to find your website online, but there is more to finding a domain name than you think.

Here are 5 important tips to remember when registering a domain name.

Choosing the best domain name

When people think of choosing a domain name, most of the time they think of choosing a domain with their business name in it or a domain with their own name in it. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does limit your website capabilities slightly if you are depending on traffic from the search engines like Google and Yahoo.

Before registering a domain name you must do a little research and decide which keywords you are going to target when you decide to create your website. No doubt you know the subject your website is going to be about. Now you can use Google Keyword Tool to help you find the search volumes at which people are searching related keywords.

After you know which keywords you want to target through your website it is arguably important to look for a domain name that has these keywords in it. (there are exceptions to this, see below).

Example: www.free-ecommerce-solutions.com would  most likely target the term “free ecommerce solutions” in the search engine results.

Google and other search engines work on confidence. If they think that your website is legitimate and will provide adequate and on topic information to what people are looking for, then it will very likely place you in a good search engine ranking position. A great way of showing these authority websites what your website is about is to place relevant keywords in the domain name. To make a long story short it has been researched that (at the time of this post) keywords within a domain name rank on average better than those websites that do not have these keywords in the domain name.

The exception to using keywords within your domain name.

As always there is an exception to this. If you are intending to build a brand around your company name you may not want to do this directly. For example: www.digistorecommerce.com is not a keyword rich domain, and our reason for this is because we wanted to build a brand around the ecommerce software that we supply so that when people searched for Digistore within Google or Yahoo our website would be displayed before other websites. This may well have happened anyway, but im sure you get my drift on this importance.

Keep your domain name short

The less people have to type to get to your website, generally the better. This is pretty self explanatory but many people don’t and in my opinion can let your website down, particularly if you are not getting traffic to your website because people can’t remember your domain name.

Hyphens in your domain name

Long domain names should really have a gap or  (-, hyphen) between each word so that people can make out what the website domain is without having to split the works in their mind. You can’t use spaces in a domain name so the best alternative to this is using hyphens.

Example:

www.thisismywonderfulwebsitedomainname.com would be a lot easier read if you use

www.this-is-my-wonderful-website-domain-name.com

Register a few domains

Protecting your own website and domain names is probably becoming more of a problem each and every passing day. Protect yourself and create your domain name again using a different extension to your domain.

Example: If you have registered www.computer-consultants.co.nz and you would like to protect your domain name on the internet, you might like to consider registering names like:

  • www.computer-consultants.com.au
  • www.computerconsultants.co.nz
  • www.computer-consultants.com

So that others can’t take your domain name and get your potential traffic to their website.

Where can i register a domain name?

Probably the most important tip of all is where can you actually register a domain name. I will list a few places where i think you can get a reasonably good deal when registering a domain name over the internet.

Most domain registrars on the internet will offer you more or less the same service and the only major difference i have noticed across them all is a slight price difference. Many of the registrars can combine your hosting with the domain registration, and this may be good option for you to avoid complications when possible problems between web hosting and domain name settings arise.

You can probably research this yourself by searching Google for domain registrars but, i will provide a couple of links to reputable web hosting companies that also provide domain registration as part of their service.

Web hosting and Domain registrars

Site5.com
My number one recommendation as a domain registrar and web hosting provider would be Site5.com. I have been with Site 5 for about 1.5 years now and they have always been very helpful with providing me with solutions to my problems in a quick manner. Read my Site5 web hosting review.

Host Gator
Another top contender is Host Gator. They also provide very reasonably priced web hosting solutions.

You may also be interested in seeing our how to register a domain name page for other recommendations for domain registrars