What to consider before registering a domain name

Location, location, location. If you’ve ever bought a house or watched House Hunters on HGTV you know what I mean. The value of a property is determined by its location. The value of your website lies in a strong domain name — if it’s easy to remember and type then the more valuable the brand you will be able to create.

So, location is to real estate as domain is to websites. (Sorry for the throwback analogy there, my 16 year old is getting ready to take the PSAT and we have analogies on the brain right now).

In short, the host you select is kind of like the neighborhood you pick: it’s the infrastructure — the streets, the sidewalk, the trash pick-up, the lights, the HOA rules, etc. The domain you select is your home. It is your personal space. And just like when you are house hunting, the house you love may not be the best home for you. There are 3 important things to know about selecting your name.

Keep it Short

When you first start typing in potential domain names, it may seem like everyone is taken. Services like DomainBot.com will offer you alternatives but it is really important that you keep the name short and simple. Some of the alternatives may be rather amusing. I put in “StillLifeGems.com” and it offered MotionlessGems as an alternative. ; )

Short, simple and standardized spelling all work to your favor. Unless you have Coca-cola’s advertising budget to drill alternative spellings into everyone’s subconscious, most people are going to type in “expert” rather than “xpert”.

Speaking of experts, some SEO experts suggest that including the keyword in your domain will boost your rankings with Google. Others say that since Google seems to constantly change the formula they use to make those rankings that it really doesn’t help in any significant way. (A keyword, by the way, is just one of the main topics that your blog focusses on.)

If you can figure out a way to use one of your keywords in your domain in a natural sounding way, then great! By all means use it! An example might by PhotographsbyJessica.com. But if it begins to sound convoluted or complex or just plain weird, than I would suggest that you drop it in favor of short and simple.

.Com or something else?

Most people default to .com when they enter a domain into the address bar. So the common advice is to try your best to stick to that ending. But it’s hard. With over 100 million .coms out there, it can be a real challenge to try and find a unique one that works for you.

There are alternatives. Over the next couple of years ICANN (the group that sort of guides the internet or at least issues the standards for naming and registering domains) will be releasing over 700 new TLDs (top-level domains: .com, .biz, .net, .org, etc.). You can see a list here. Some of these may be perfect for you: JessicaMaleski.photography for example, would be awesome for me. But at this point, it’s difficult to gauge how popular they will be and if consumers will accept them (without Coke’s ad budget to drill them into our heads).

Privacy

When you register a domain, you are purchasing it from one of the ICANN-approved registrars. ICANN requires that your contact information (e-mail, phone, address) be made available in a searchable public database called WHOIS. Spammers, competitors, and even bad guys can look up who owns any website and find your info — unless, that is, you choose to pay for WHOIS privacy services.

Does that sound a little scary to you? Sure does to me. Why do they need an address? Shouldn’t an e-mail be sufficient? In this day and age you would certainly think so.

Luckily, your hosting service can protect you. For an annual fee, you can select WHOIS privacy and the host’s information will be used to place of yours in the WHOIS database. You are still technically the owner of the name, but the contact information is your host’s.

Finally, now that you have settled on a name, it’s time to register it. This is usually done through your hosting service so tomorrow, we will walk through that process, step-by-step.

Up Next: A Domain Registration Walk-through

*If you signed up to receive the post by e-mail, I apologize if you didn’t get it yesterday. There was a small glitch in the system. It’s been fixed and you should be getting them from now on. Here’s a link to the two previous posts in this series:

• 3 Must-Have Features to Look for in a WordPress Hosting Service
• Is WordPress Optimized Hosting Right for You?

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