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Domains Choosing a domain Search Engines Getting Started Spiders Directories Social Networking Print Marketing Business Cards Gathering names Going to Press Signatures Do not annoy Do not spam Images in email bcc Getting Attention Press Releases Questionable Schemes Link Exchanges |
Choosing a domain
The following criterion will make your domain useful in marketing your site
Have your own domain.
Perhaps the most important part of a domain is simply to have one. You could load some pages onto another persons domain, but it will be much harder for the site to be found.
| A site with a domain | www.mywebsite.com |
| A site without a domain | www.someoneelsessite.com/mypages/ |
Find a domain that is not in use by others
Unless you are a fortune 500 company, it is probably not worth it to buy a domain name being sold by others. Domains are a small part of the marketing of your site and it is unlikely any money spent on a domain would pay back. Besides you might get all kinds of email / spam intended for the previous owner.
Make the domain descriptive of what the site contains
This will help people to remember you. It will also assist if people search for you with key words in your domain. For artists this could include your name or reference to they type of art you do. For example you might consider including one of the following words in your domain: art, studio, gallery, pastels, watercolor...
Make the domain easy to remember
You would like to be able to mention your domain name to others and have it be easy enough to remember that they will later look it up.
I have a simple rule of thumb for determining how easy it is to remember a domain. Count the number of English words. A domain with two english words will be easier to remember than a domain with 3 or four. There are several adjuncts to this rule of thumb.
- The first is take away points for a domain that is not dot com. The average person expects a site to end in .com, so if you choose .org, .net or any of the other options, you will inadvertently send a portion of your clientele to whoever owns the .com version of your domain.
- Second take points away for using a dash or underscore(-, _) to separate words. People expect domains to be all one word.
- Finally take points away for words that are hard to spell. Names often fall into this category. If your client can't spell your domain, they will have a hard time finding it.
- Pay attention to how the letters look when combined to make a domain. Sometimes domains look unpronounceable in the all one word state. Sometimes putting words together make new words not intended.
here are some sample domains with comments
| www.redpaintings.com | easy to remember, |
| www.red-paintings.com | hard to describe, because you have to explain that dash is a character (i.e. "-" not "dash") |
| www.redpaintings.org | some visitors will accidentally go to .com |
| www.manyredpaintings.com | one more word to remember |
| www.dwightsredpaintings.com | some visitors might misspell the name dwight |
| www.myredpaintingartshack.com | 5 words to remember in this domain. Try to find something different with less to remember. |
| www.ourredpaintings.com | The double "r" looks kind of odd. (our+red= ourred) |
| www.theredpaintings.com | the+red= thered This looks like "there" with a "d" or a misspelling of "thread" |
| www.redpaintingshititbig.com | In this case the intended domain red+paintings+hit+it+big could be read as red+painting+shit+it+big |
Stick with your domain
Once you have chosen a domain stick with it. People will start linking to you and book marking your site. Abandoning a domain will make it more difficult for those people to find you.
