Internet Gangsters

I’ve bought quite a few domains over the years, a lot of which just sit and do nothing. I may have had a good idea at one point and bought a domain in anticipation of creating a new site, only to forget all about it or realize that the idea might not have been so great. So this little write-up is more of a guide on how to get a good domain name, where to buy them and other domain questions.

So you have an idea for a site geared towards making money. The topic of the site isn’t necessarily “Making Money” but your main purpose for creating the site is to make money through displaying ads somehow. Now one of the best ways to get people to your site right from the start is to buy a domain that someone already owns or that a site is already created on. And by this I mean you find a site that someone may be selling on one of the many web marketing forums out there, that the person just has no use for anymore, or didn’t do what they wanted with. It’s going to cost you more than it would if you registered the domain yourself, but if the domain has been around longer it helps with SEO (search engine optimization). Google and other search engines sometimes look down on sites that are strictly looking to make money and have just started up. Now this isn’t always the case though, if you have legitimate content on your site and people like reading it then you should be ok with SEO from the start, that’s not saying you are going to be #1 in google from day 1, that takes work and another write-up. So click below to check out some tips for buying domain names.

So if you can’t buy a domain that’s already established or just don’t want to, here are a few tips on how to go about buying a good domain that will work for you and not against you.

1. Short and to the point - Try to keep your domain name as short as possible and to the point. If you’re setting up a site about dogs, you want something like mydogs, edogs, or whatever. Just something short. You wouldn’t want to do something like tomshouseofawesomelysweetdogs.com , I mean who wouldn’t want to vist Toms house of awesomely sweet dogs? But not everyone is going to want to type that into their browser. tdogs.com would be better or awesomedogs.com isn’t bad either. But when it starts getting long think to yourself, would you want to type this whole thing into a browser everytime you visit the site. There are some exceptions to the rule I guess. If you’re strictly expecting search engine traffic then a little longer domain isn’t bad, since people will just be clicking a link from google, but I still won’t recommend it.
2. Avoid dashes or underscores - We’ve all seen the sites that use dashes in their names to get a domain closer to what they were looking for, but again, nobody types dashes when going to domains. For example would you type refinance-the-loan-on-your-pinto.com in a browser? Or would you even click on a link from a site that looked like that? I proabably wouldn’t, but that’s just me… and i don’t have a pinto. So this one kind of goes along with #1, just keep it to the point and short and avoid dashes or underscores in the domain name.
3. Use keywords in the domain - For example if your site is about celebrity nose jobs, you wouldn’t want to title the domain floppyappendages.com. Yeah that could pertain to a nose, but it will help with your SER (search engine rank) if you have at least “nose” in your domain, obviously both “nose” and “job” would be huge.
4. Dot Com Domains are Key - A .com domain is the best domain you can get, it’s what people know and trust. .Net would be a 2nd choice if you absolutely can’t get a .com that works for you. Personally I don’t really like to use .org as it is supposed to be for organizations and most people view .org as being for that purpose. However you can use them if you choose, there is no difference between what a .com can do and what a .org can do, it’s just how people perceive them and what they were created for originally. Usually I only recommend .com as you can see above, however I have become partial to .info lately as it does make sense for some of the sites I’ve created. The main pro behind the .info domains is that they are cheap. www.GoDaddy.com sells them for $1.99, so if you are unsure if your site is going to bring in readers you may want to test out the waters first then try to find a .com that suits your niche.

So these are a few tips I’ve come up with and read on the web over the years and they definitely help. A good domain name is key to marketing your site. It’s what people remember and what people must type in, in order to come to your site. The only exception to these rules, I feel, is if you are trying to market a unique name for your company or site. So say you were making a new site like facebook or myspace, but didn’t want to use anything similar or anything about a social network in your domain, maybe the name Flappable popped in your head one day and you want to start a social network called “The Flappable Network” then flappable.com would be a good choice.

And as far as where to buy domains, I obviously recommend www.GoDaddy.com
. They have a great interface, great prices and really good customer service. I’ve bought a couple domains in the past through other sellers and was never completely satisfied.