How To Choose And Register Your Domain Name

Congratulations you're about to take the second step towards getting your website. Your domain name is the specific address people use to access your website. For example, the address of this website is "profits4sure.com" A domain name can end in .com, .net, .org, .info, .ws, .biz, .tv and more. When you choose a domain name, get one that describes your business and is easy to remember... choose carefully, It will be with you for a long time.

Before you select your domain name, you should know the purpose of your website and the kind of website visitors you wish to attract. If you are still looking for home based business ideas, visit my Profitable Home Business Ideas page, there are quite a few ideas and opportunities to choose from.

After you've decided on your idea for a home business, you can begin researching your keywords. These are the words users search for on the search engines when they want information. Be sure to choose your keywords before you register your domain name or start building your website. You can find out more about how to choose your keywords here.

I think you will find that most of the good dot com domain names like "homebusiness.com" have been taken, and since a .com name is still the most desirable, it is necessary to do a little brainstorming to get a name that is relevant to your chosen keywords. I use Name Boy. It is a great tool for finding names for your domain. It will tell you which names are available and suggest others you can use. Enter the domain name you want to check into the online form without the "www." and your search will tell you if anyone already owns the name. If the name is taken, you will have to select another one. If it is unregistered, you can proceed.

Once you have chosen your domain name, head on over to Godaddy where you can purchase a .com domain name for as low as $9.95 per year.You can also try Name Cheap which comes in a few cents under Godaddy at $8.88 per year. Your name Cheap domain name comes packaged with "WhoisGuard" Protection. This simply means that your postal address is hidden from anyone looking up your domain name through Whois.com.

Avoid "free" hosting. Beside the ads your host puts on your website, you have an added disadvantage, if your Internet provider goes out of business you stand to lose your domain, email address, all your customers and the search engines won't know where to find you. It is worth spending the small registration and hosting fee to have the added security.

Choosing a Search Engine Friendly Domain Name

Search engines place considerable weight on a domain name's keywords. Therefore, using descriptive domain names like the one above can help you achieve good rankings. Sometimes, placing hyphens between the words of your domain name can help search engines distinguish between the words in your domain.

There is a fine balance between Search Engine Optimization & confusing your customers!

Don't make your domain name so long, people can't remember it. If you do decide to hyphenate your domain name, try to buy the same version of the domain name without hyphens, in case your customers forget the hyphens. Simply forward the name without hyphens to your host when you forward the one with hyphens.

For example: We sell lawn care products (this is purely hypothetical - I don't know how popular the term is!)

I would purchase lawn-care-products.com and host my website on that domain. This helps search engines distinguish between the words.

I would also buy lawncareproducts.com and forward it to the above domain. That way, if my customers forget the hyphens, they can still find my site.

In addition to purchasing the hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of your domain name, it makes good sense to purchase the various top level domains (.com, .net, .biz) in order to protect your domain name.

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