There is a lot to be thought out with your domain name. The best domain names have keywords in them, and the most important keywords that are relevant to your site. It's pretty much common sense that the domain name cement-block.com is owned by a site that sells, or produces or is informative about cement blocks. The name acme.com doesn't tell much about your business.

Being a .org can be a benefit. But you need to be an organization, or entity of some sort to really be qualified for that domain. You will be in a real pickle if when you type your most important keyword into Google and all of, or most of, the Top-10 results are .edu or .org sites. The .edu (educational institutions) generally score higher than any .com or .net's do.

You can get a myriad of domain extensions now. There are .info, .us and many, many more available. They are all valid domain extensions and I know of no instance where you would be penalized by using any one of them. This is however a subject that gets much attention and you will no doubt see discussions on the SEO blogs and forums about this very subject. It is definitely something to think about, keep an ear tuned to, and of course, like everything in SEO is subject to change without notice.

It is also a good idea to purchase your domain name for a longer period of time than just one year. Most registrar's offer a 10 year registration. Go for it if it is at all possible. Google does have the ability to see your domain registration information. They, apparently, do look at it and consider the site that is registered for 10 years to be more serious than the site that is registered for only one. It's worth the investment if you are totally serious about making it online with your domain name. Make sure it's a good one that you won't want to change in the near future.



You really need a domain name. Do not settle for some free web space somewhere where your company gets tagged onto someone else's domain like:

myisp.com/~yourbusinessname
or
aol.com/~henry322120030494984892-2draggedoutname

First, you won't look like a professional business, second, you will never get your business listed in the Top-5 on the engines.

There is a lot to be thought out with your domain name. The best domain names have keywords in them, and the most important keywords that are relevant to your site. It's pretty much common sense that the domain name cement-block.com is owned by a site that sells, or produces or is informative about cement blocks. The name acme.com doesn't tell much about your business.

I can't seem to get this across to people enough. I do understand that many existing businesses have names that really don't tell what they do. The above Acme is a good example. In real life when you advertise, you do it with newspaper ads, telephone book ads, billboard, etc. You get to explain what your business is about. People get to see a picture that explains what your business is about. Online, you get a title that is linked to your site and a brief, sometimes complete gibberish, description. That is it. If your domain name tells what you are, defines you as your market, then you are ahead of the game. Plus, and this is a big plus, you'll have a better chance of getting good listings in the search engines.

Being a .org can be a benefit. But you need to be an organization, or entity of some sort to really be qualified for that domain. You will be in a real pickle if when you type your most important keyword into Google and all of, or most of, the Top-10 results are .edu or .org sites. The .edu (educational institutions) generally score higher than any .com or .net's do.

You can get a myriad of domain extensions now. There are .info, .us and many, many more available. They are all valid domain extensions and I know of no instance where you would be penalized by using any one of them. This is however a subject that gets much attention and you will no doubt see discussions on the SEO blogs and forums about this very subject. It is definitely something to think about, keep an ear tuned to, and of course, like everything in SEO is subject to change without notice.

It is also a good idea to purchase your domain name for a longer period of time than just one year. Most registrar's offer a 10 year registration. Go for it if it is at all possible. Google does have the ability to see your domain registration information. They, apparently, do look at it and consider the site that is registered for 10 years to be more serious than the site that is registered for only one. It's worth the investment if you are totally serious about making it online with your domain name. Make sure it's a good one that you won't want to change in the near future.

This little point needs to be up front as well. Don't just pick a name because you don't feel creative today and haven't thought up a good one. Don't take a name that won't be descriptive of your business next year. I have a client who had a fairly good domain name. Before he signed on with our firm to optimize his site he had changed the domain name. He added a new keyword to the domain. A year later, he signed with us, and is not making sales on the added product line and is dropping it. Now his domain name defines itself with a keyword for a product he doesn't sell. He told me he'd probably go back to the other domain name later down the road. I guess he wanted us to optimize his site, get him into the Top-5 and then go and change his name. This is not a good strategy.