Website Marketing Tips
Tip #3: Your Domain Name

  Yet another way to aid in your website marketing efforts is through you're domain name. 

Although the jury is still out with a definitive answer as to whether or not your keyword or phrase in your domain makes a different in your search engine rankings, I suggest that you take advantage of the following tip if at all possible.

First, if you're reading this article you most likely already have a domain name.  If you do, I do not suggest that you change it; especially if your website can be found within the search engines already. 

However, you can add to your toolbox, a new domain that points to your current website if you desire.  You'll understand why this is important for website marketing in just a moment.

If you don't already have a domain name, then this is just the article for you. 

When you focus on website marketing, you want to get every last advantage over your competition as possible.  One notch in your belt can be that of a properly optimized domain name.

If you know what your website will be about (e.g. the topic of the website), then you also know what the main word or phrase is for that website.  Ideally you want to use that term within your domain name.

See our article on keywords to help you get that perfect term. 

Ideally, you want to place your main keyword as close to the beginning of your domain name as possible.

Here's an example:  let's say your market is lamps.  Now, there's probably no way whatsoever that you'll be able to get the domain name "lamps.com" but, you could use different variations while still keeping that term in the forefront.

Consider variations like “lampsforsale.com” or “lampsforthehome.com” or even “lampsthatinspire.com”.

Choose something that is easy to remember and has a cadence to it. Something like “lampslightlife.com” or “lampslicketysplit.com”.

I want you to notice something here. First of all, all of the domains I suggested are all .com domains. Although you’ll hear varying suggestions on the use of .net and .org domain names, I highly suggest that you purchase a .com domain since nearly everyone will, by default, enter your website and then “.com”.

Ideally, purchase all three versions of your domain; the .com, .net and .org versions as well.

Another thing I want you to notice is that I did NOT hyphenate the domains. There are plenty of arguments online that say it doesn’t matter if you have a hyphenated domain name or not since you’ll be found in the search engines anyway. I completely disagree.

There will be times, especially when people get to know your website name pretty darn well and they’re not going to be heading to the search engines to find you. They’ll just type in your domain name to get to where you are. If you use hyphens in your name, you are guaranteed that someone, somewhere will screw up and put in your domain name without the hyphens thus ending up at your competitions website.

Just consider these two alternatives:
LampsLightLife.com OR Lamps-Light-Life.com. Which one would YOU as a site visitor remember to type in, especially if you’re busy?

Better be safe than sorry and stick with a domain without hyphens.

And while we’re on the subject of domain names, I suggest NameCheap.com for your domain registration and, if you want to take it further and talk about hosting (because you need somewhere to put your website) I suggest HostGator by far.

So remember, NameCheap.com for the domain registration and HostGator for the web hosting.

Don't forget to check out our other website marketing tips contained here on the website and implement each one to help in your website marketing efforts.

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