How to Choose a Domain Name that will Drive MORE Traffic to a Website

Creating a website can be tricky, but choosing the right domain name is even trickier. A good domain name can drive more traffic to your website, and a not so good domain name may cause a stagnant website. The concept of having your own website is that it should effectively represent your purpose, whether it will be for personal or business use. Once you create your website, it follows that you should and must register your own domain name.

So what is a domain name? It is a unique alphanumeric name that gives identity to a website on the World Wide Web. A domain name has a maximum length of 67 characters, this includes the 0 to 9 numbers, English alphabet composed of 26 letters, and the hyphens. Hyphens in a domain name can only be used within and not at the beginning or the ending of the name.

Domain names have suffixes, and they are called Top Level Domain (TLD). Domain name TLD's are based on the category of organization that they are related to. The following are several of the most popular TLD's:

1. .gov for government agency
2. .edu for educational institution
3. .org for nonprofit organizations
4. .net for commercial network
5. .com for commercial business domain

Since domain names gives identity to a website, it follows that choosing the right one can be a bit complicated. Your objective is to opt for a name that is easy to remember, search engine optimization friendly, and more importantly a domain name that mirrors the content, and/or products and services that your website provides. At the end of the day your chosen domain name can make or break you.

Do's and Don'ts in choosing a Domain Name

Obviously, a domain name should be related to your websites content. If you're selling shirts then do not choose a name such as pants.com. Choosing unrelated names will confuse site visitors and frankly it doesn't make any sense at all.

A domain name as discussed earlier should be easy to remember. So choosing too long of a name is a No-No. Which is better yourshirts.com or your-shirts-in-different-styles-and-colors.com?

However, a short name is also not advisable, because a short name will not have much impact in driving traffic to your website. Try to purchase a domain name with few keywords with relevance to the content of your website. Which is better yourshirts.com or shirt.com?
Integrating keywords in choosing a domain name will help, because it will result in a higher ranking on search engines. Which is better yourshirts.com or yoursite.com? With yourshirts.com you can immediately identify that the website is about shirts as opposed to yoursite.com wherein you are at lost as to what the website is all about, you will loose potential website traffic if you do it that way.