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July 11, 2007 - by Bill Nixon
  
Choose The Right Domain Name

Don't just buy any domain name
  

Many people don't do any research before buying their domain name. They simply come up with a few that work and go to one of the domain name sellers like Network Solutions and purchase a domain.

In this area, however, a little research could go a long way especially when it comes to the search engine results. Why? Because search engines put a LOT of weight on the primary domain name. For example, one of my websites that I market is http://www.kellinixon.com. I am marketing it for the words "Charleston Wedding Photographer" and similar phrases.

Google gives us a very high ranking when people search for "Kelli Nixon." As of this writing, when you search for Kelli Nixon, the site comes up #1 on Google, Yahoo!, AllTheWeb, Answers.com, and MSN LiveSearch.

Sounds pretty good right? Wrong. It is good if people already know Kelli Nixon's name, but if they already knew her name then marketing herself would not be that important. She would already have all of the business that she needs.

No, it would have been much better to have a name like "charleston-wedding-photographer.com" to work with for Kelli because then, the words we are trying to win on would be in the URL already.

So, how do you select the best domain name?

It is best to start out by thinking about what you do rather than who you are. In other words, if you are a home inspector in Charleston, then a great name might be home-inspector-in-charleston.com. Why? Because people are going to search for what you do, not who you are.