Buy a Domain Name

It isn't time yet to buy a domain name, but you can start brainstorming and researching keywords to help you in choosing the best domain name for your website.

Depending on what the topic of your site is, you will want the domain name to help you in getting the right traffic to your website. Using the main keywords that you want your site to be found for will help but you first have to do some research to find out just what they are.

If you are creating a website for your business it is not always best to use your business name as your domain name because it might not include your main keywords. For example: if your business is called Dream Massage Clinic - people won't be searching for those words - dream - massage -clinic. Well they might be searching for massage clinic but that would show sites from around the world. If someone local is searching for your business you will want to use the name of the city or area of town AND a word or two that best describes just what it is that you do. You can always get other domain names that are easier to say and use on business promotional materials and have that domain point to your main site (that uses the best keywords!)

The whole idea is to really pick a domain name that uses the main keywords that someone would be using to search for your business right before they find exactly that!

So just start playing around and think about what words people would use to find your business or website (if it is just an informational site or product site). Write down some ideas and just start actually doing those searches in Google.com and Yahoo.com. See what sites come up on the first page. Are they your competition? If so you can take a look at the words that they are using as their main keywords by taking a look at the website code.

Go to the top of your browser and click on the "View" column in Firefox or in Internet Explorer it says "Page" near the right side near the top. Then click on "Page Source" or "View Source" (or various browsers will say different things.)

When you click on that it opens up a window that will show you the source code of the page. Somewhere close to the top of the page you will find a list of the websites metatags. It will look something like this:

META Name="Description" Content="How to make a website from start to finish - html, domains, hosting, services, for fun, for business."
meta name="Keywords" content="make a website, create a website, make your own website, start a website"

So you can actually go to a website that is your main competition and look at their keywords and get some ideas for your own. (Tip: Many websites do not use the correct keywords!)

Domain Name Availability:Domain name availability is one of the challenges of finding a good domain name. Most of the best domain names have already been taken. The way to get around it is to use descriptive words in front of or at the end of your domain name to further enhance it. You can also use hyphens. Actually it can help when you have a domain name that is more than three words and is hard to read.

You can also buy a shortened domain that is easier to read or say and have it forwarded to your main site.

So start thinking about what words people will use to find you. Then after you get a good list of words you can use some of the keyword tools in this handy little website research tool (just read and follow the directions. Use the "Brainstorming" selection in box 1 and then choose one of the many keyword tools. Click on the help buttons for explanations.) and find out how many people are actually searching for those words. That will give your more help in choosing the best domain names.

The website host that I use has some software included called "Brainstormit" that helps you do more in depth keyword research. Everything online is driven by keywords- get that part right is a big step in getting ready to buy a domain name.

Most hosts will have domain name services. One of the important things to keep track of is their renewal dates. I used a webhost (hostgator.com) for about a year and they lost two domains for me. They didn't have any system to track your domains and notify you when they were up for renewal. Losing a domain is not a good thing in the website business so be careful who you choose to manage your domains and keep them up to date.

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