TIPS FOR BUYING DOMAIN NAMES

Length: Shorter domain names are better if the domain name is going to be typed-in often (brandable domains, mass-market domains, major websites). A shorter domain means reduced risk of typo errors, easier memorability, faster type-ins, and more flexibility in promoting the domain. For these reasons, most businesses who can afford it buy a domain of five characters or less. Two and three character domains are the choice of major corporations (GE.com, AA.com, ML.com, AOL.com, MSN.com, etc…), and come with a price tag to match. At the other extreme, an informational site that receives most of its traffic from search engines will do fine with a domain of two or even three words. DOMAIN NAMES

Before buying a domain name, you should consider the following:

Country-specific or international: If your business is only active in a single country or if you want to target buyers in a specific country, it may be adequate to use a country-specific extension such as .us, .co.uk, or .ca. If you’d like to appeal to a global audience, it is best to choose a generic extension such as .com, .biz, or .info.

Importance of Keywords: If search engines are a major source of traffic to your site, make sure that your domain includes one or more of your principal keywords—this can help you get a good ranking on these terms. Also some buyers are looking for some high searched keywords, not just any kind of name. If you have domains with high searched keywords, you will apeal to a higher buying audience.

Commercial or informational: If you intend to sell products on your site, it is important to convey a professional image. Usually, this means a short, brandable .com domain name without hyphens or numbers. If your site is informational only, consider a .info or .org extension.

Target User Group: Different domain names will appeal to different groups. For example, a B2B site will generally do best with a descriptive domain name so that a visitor immediately knows what the site is about (EX: Naming.com, Corporation.com). A mass-audience B2C site will generally do better with a catchy, brandable domain name (EX: Yahoo.com, Amazon.com, Google.com).

Risk for Traffic Diversion: Choosing the wrong domain name can result in thousands of lost visitors due to mistypings. To reduce this risk, avoid hyphens, numbers, misspellings, and exotic extensions. People should be able to figure out the domain’s spelling from the way it is pronounced: eg, “yahoo” or “amazon” is easy to spell, but u-websites.cc or kool4ts.net will tend to leak a lot of traffic. If in doubt, register or buy all possible spellings of the name.

Length: Shorter domain names are better if the domain name is going to be typed-in often (brandable domains, mass-market domains, major websites). A shorter domain means reduced risk of typo errors, easier memorability, faster type-ins, and more flexibility in promoting the domain. For these reasons, most businesses who can afford it buy a domain of five characters or less. Two and three character domains are the choice of major corporations (GE.com, AA.com, ML.com, AOL.com, MSN.com, etc…), and come with a price tag to match. At the other extreme, an informational site that receives most of its traffic from search engines will do fine with a domain of two or even three words.