Domain Names Your Brand Your Website
The importance and selection of a Website's Domain Name is often overlooked and not given the consideration required. Even if you have your Domain Name and Website, consideration should be given to purchasing additional Domain Names to ensure security of Brand and to offer additional Search Engine Optimization potential .
Domain Name Defined: The Domain Name is your website’s address www.your-domain-name.com also known as a Uniform Resource Locator (URL).
Domain Name Selection
The relevance of a Domain Name to your products and services should be the primary consideration when purchasing a Domain Name. Relevance is one of the principle selection criteria used by Search Engines to determine the rank in a Search Engine Result Page the webpage will receive.
Selecting the business name it is not necessarily the best choice of Domain Names and has minimal Search Engine Optimization benefit, unless of course the business name is relevant to the services and products provided.
Keywords and the Domain Name
Select a keyword rich Domain Name relevant to your products and services. The keywords used in the Domain Name should be high level generic terms providing Search Engines and Internet users an indication of the website’s products and services. The Domain Name is not the place to develop more specific targeted terms (Keyword Phrases), these terms should be optimized in the URL of the website topic specific web pages.
If your preferred Domain Name is unavailable Keyword Research is recommended to assist in the process of Domain Name selection.
Domain Name Example: www.sports-equipment.com
- This Domain Name example clearly indicates to Search Engines and potential visitors the website’s topic.
- The hyphen in the Domain Name is the preferred method when using more than one word in a web address
Domain Name Extensions
The Domain Name Extension refers to the .com, .net, .org and many of the numerous extensions which are now available such as .biz, .tv.
In addition to the primary Domain Extensions most countries have Country specific Domain Extensions:
.ca Canada .au Australia .co.uk United Kingdom .co.nz New Zealand
Country Domain Extension List:
Domain Extension Selection
A .com Domain Extension is the most popular. As the Internet grows additional Domain Extensions have been added such as .biz, .tv. Although these Domain Extensions may be useful, I do not recommend the new extension types to be purchased as the main Domain Name for the website. However the newer Domain extensions are worth purchasing in addition to your primary domain name such as www.sports-equipment.com may also wish to purchase www.sports-equipment.biz
Geographic Domain Names
When selecting the Domain Extension for your web site, it is necessary to consider the geographic location of your customers and business. If your business and customers are primarily in the United States or your business targets a global audience a .com extension is the ideal choice.
If your business targets clients in a local or national geographic area, a Country specific Domain Extensions such as .ca, or .co.uk is recommended to improve you Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) placement in local search listings.
However, there is a downside, although the local Domain Extension will provide better results for local listings with Google MSN and Yahoo which have local search results in many countries, it will be more difficult to obtain good position in the main indexes (.com) of Google MSN and Yahoo due to the geographic nature of the primary Domain Name.
There are strategies which can assist to resolve this problem.
Build your site and use your preferred Domain Name www.sports-equipment.ca
- Purchase the .com or other Domain Names as required and “point” this domain to your primary Domain Name.(Your Domain Name Seller will be able to assist you with this process)
- Purchase the .com or other Domain Names as required and build a highly optimized “mini site” and link to your primary Domain Name. To ensure you obtain the maximum Search Optimization benefit it will be necessary to ensure the “mini site” is not hosted on the same server as the primary website. Search Engines are extremely sophisticated, if both websites are hosted on the same server, link value will be diminished as it will be assumed by the Search Engines both sites are owned by the same company.
Example:
www.sports-equipment.ca is a website selling sports equipment to the Canadian market. The business also wants to target the United States or global market for some easy to ship products and will perform better in the primary Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) with a www.sports-equipment.com address.
Purchasing Multiple Domain Names
It is often advisable to purchase numerous Domain Names for the following reasons
- Prevents competitors from registering similar Domain Names
- To promote the various products and services your business offers.
- Increase Search Engine Results Pages listings.
- Develop advertising strategies for niche markets
- Protects your business brand and online identity
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Written by: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .ca a Search Engine Optimisation Consultant
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