Are All the Good Domains Taken?
Due to the explosive demand for domain names it is becoming increasingly difficult to get short meaningful web addresses. Chances are you are going to have to make some compromises when registering your domain name. If you manage to get a short domain name that is meaningful, easy to remember, sounds good, and simple to spell consider yourself very fortunate.
An additional advantage of longer domain names is that they are more room for your keywords. Long domain names that have your site keywords in them also have an advantage in that they fare better in a number of search engines. The latter give preference to keywords that are also found in your domain names. So, for example, if you have a site on San Diego Weddings with a domain name like sandiegoweddingadvicedotcom, it might fare better in a search for “San Diego Wedding Advice” than another site, gethitchedinthesundotcom.
For the most part, I would discourage the use of hyphenated domain names. Most importantly, it’s easy to forget the hyphens when typing a name. Many users are used to typing things like partyandweddingfavors.com but not party-and-wedding-favorsdotcom. Chances are people typing in your domain name will leave out the hyphens giving their business to your competitor.
When people refer your site to others verbally, having hyphens in your domain name leads to more potential errors than when the name does not contain hyphens. For example, how do you think your visitors will refer to your site if it is named “party-and-wedding-favorsdotcom”? They might say, “I visited Party and Wedding Favors dot com yesterday. It is such a great site, you should check it out”. The referred person, remembering that comment later, might type into their browsers “partyandweddingfavors.com”. Oops.
Hyphenated domain names are difficult to type. Who wants to insert a hyphen between each word just to get the proper domain name? It is simply too much work.
On the plus side, search engines may reward your site with better results due to the hyphen-separated words. Thus positioning your site more favorably in search results for those keywords occurring in your domain name. If the non-hyphenated form is no longer available at least you can get the next best thing.
Avoid numbers in your domain name unless it is part of your business name. If your business is called 1-hour Photo, it is perfectly normal to have the number one in your domain name. In case you had to have the chocolate.com domain name, but it was not longer available, please don’t register chocolate847.com. Unless, you have a great reason to have a number in your domain name avoid it. A great idea for domain names with numbers is when your phone number is your domain.
If you don’t want to have your phone number as your domain name by itself, you could combine it with your company name. It is possible to have your toll free number as your domain name. Before you commit to a toll free number, check with a domain registrar to make sure the domain name is still available. Your phone company usually gives you 5 or more toll free numbers to chose from, so if the first number is not available ask for another one.
Including a number within your domain name may create problems, as when you tell your customer your web address, you will always have to tell them it’s a number and not the word. For instance, if you have chosen a domain name such as bestonlinebusiness4everdotcom, if you were to tell someone your web address, they may try to type it as bestonlinebusinessforeverdotcom ‘ instead of bestonlinebusiness4everdotcom.’ This kind of domain name would create mix-ups.
Both hyphens and numbers make it difficult to communicate your domain name verbally. In addition, they may be hard to remember. Avoid using spelled-out or roman numerals in domain names, as both can be the source of confusion. The same rules apply to domain name with numbers and hyphens as it is to domains without them.
Your Web address should be part of your overall marketing strategy. Make sure you add your Web address to all of your marketing materials. All of your marketing materials should feature your Web address and your e-mail address. When you print your business card, catalogs, brochures, letterheads, always have your domain name included.
