Domain Names:

The Domain Name Should Be the Website Name.

This may seem obvious but it’s surprising how many sites are given a different name than the domain. If the name is also the URL there is no confusion. My site is Kimmilton.com. I also own kimsjournal.com. Other domains I have purchased are gurutricks.com and prewii.com.

• If the domain name is not available, see if the owner is willing to sell it? Look at the “whois” to find contact information.
• Another option is to find a good domain name and then create your business around that name.

Specific or generic names?

It sounds good to have a generic name but when people are looking for something they normally have a more specific name in mind. If I want to fly to New York, I don’t search for Airplane, or fly. I search for ‘compare airfares’ or ‘cheap flights’. A, matter of fact there are some companies that have branded themselves. Can you guess who?

The length of the domain name. (A domain name can be 67 characters.)

Longer and Hyphenated names may have an advantage with search engines.

Here is what I look for (these are my preferences):

• A domain name that is 15 or less characters. The longer a name is the more likely it is to be misspelled.
• Personal (specific) to what I am doing. Ex: kimsjournal.com
• No funky spelling. Ex: room2fly.com or room-to-fly.com
• Two thoughts that go together. Ex: kimsjournal.com or thrushprocessing.com a bad domain name is more like getdiscountsforme.com.
• No acronyms unless universally known

Plurals

I f you can't get the domain name you want, the registrar will suggest alternate forms. Ex: class.com, myclass.com, myclasses.com. This is fine as long as you advertise the site with the complete name. Be careful that you don’t compete with similar business that has the singular version if the name.

What domains are best? com, net, org, etc…

The domain very much depends on what the domain is being used for and the audience. I prefer .com but there are a very limited number of .com names available.

Space

It’s easy and in most cases less expensive to buy the domain name and space from the same company, within a package. Most packages allow hosting for multiple domains within the same space.

http://www.cheap-web-hosting-plans.com/

Getting Started:

• Defining a website
• Defining a remote Server
• New File (HTML page)

Next answer a few questions...