Domain Name – How To Pick One
Picking a domain name should be easy, right? Why, I’ll just use my business name. Not so fast, Sparky. A good bit of thought should be given to selecting a domain name.
A Cautionary Note
Picking a domain name is like getting married. You are going to have to stick with it till the bitter end. People that use your site will come to know it by the domain name. Repeat visitors will often simply type in the domain name to get to the site, better known as “type in traffic”. As an example, do you search for “Amazon” when you want to buy a book or do simply type in amazon.com? If Amazon were to change its domain name to Desert, there would be a lot of confusion. The same goes with your domain. Once you pick something, stick with it.
Your Choices
Well, the obvious choice is your business name, but it may not be the best. There are four significant issues to consider.
First, is there something about your business name that makes using it as a domain an unwise choice? This situation typically arises if you have a long business name or have plural words. “Halstatt’s Rip’n Marketing Campaigns, Inc.” is going to be a horrible domain name. Clients are going to find it difficult to type in such a domain name.
Double letter problems are a second issue that is entirely unique to the Internet. What if Sams Salon wants to use its business name as a domain? The “s” at the end of first word and beginning of the second can cause confusion. Is the domain name Samssalon.com or Samsalon.com? Confusing your users is a bad way to run a site.
The third issue concerns the nature of your site and search engine optimization. If you are shooting for a particular keyword phrase, you may be better off using that keyword phrase in your domain name. Google, for instance, looks at the domain name when evaluating a site. If the words in your domain name are spaced with dashes, many believe it will help in the ranking process. This is why you see so many xxx-xxxx-xxx.com domain names on the net. If your business focuses on a very specific area, strong consideration should be given to using relevant keywords in your domain name.
Finally, your domain name should end in “.com” and I don’t want to hear any argument or see any rolling of the eyes. The simple fact is that when people think of sites, they always type in .com. Yes, there are other extensions and .us, .net, .biz, etc., may seem unique, but it kills your traffic. Pavlov and his dog experiments had it right. People have been mentally conditioned to type in .com, so don’t select any other ending. If you do, a smart competitor will register the .com version of your name to get some free traffic. If you are really lucky, a porn site will do it!
Take a breath before you select a domain name. Like a spouse, it can be either a good or bad choice.
Free Web Hosting – What’s the Catch?
Is FREE web hosting really free? What are some of the clauses that are attached to it?
1. Service may offer crappy servers which have very poor uptime.
2. Ads may be served on your page.
3. Share a percentage of money earned from your website.
4. Its totally free!
It is still technically possible to get absolutely free hosting, some strings attached. The servers are really crappy, and your websites are likely to be down for a few hours everyday. Almost all of these free web hosting sites that you will encounter, offer no interface or a poor interface with extremely limited features. There is no support team what so ever and there is nothing much that can be done, when your website goes down. Anyway, there is never a chance to complain, since the service is offered for free. It is a good idea to google for the company name, check for their alexa ratings and similar metrics before you decide to stick with free webhosting.
WordPress:
The next best thing of getting a free website are the industry leaders WordPress and blogger. While WordPress is totally free, you may rarely see ads served on your page. Also, there are a few restrictions that are tagged along with WordPress. For instance, you cannot write sponsored content on your webpage. While sub-domains are free, you cannot use your own domain for free(Pointing your own domain is a premium feature and costs $15 per year). Even with all these clauses, WordPress.com is still the leading blogging platform for its awesome features.
Blogger:
The next best thing is google’s blogger. While blogger has been around for even longer time than WordPress, it is not cutting edge technology. The website builder has seen some changes recently, but it is not extremely flexible. You have the option of using CSS to create custom themes, but this demands some technical expertise. The interface is not so intuitive, the plugins are so very limited. For instance, it is so easy to add social bookmarks and seo plugins in a click with WordPress. The number of theme options in blogger has been on the rise and has become a substantial collection. The good news though is Blogger offers complete free webhosting, no strings attached. There are no ads served on your page and you get to voice your own opinion, no matter what, which is not the case with WordPress.
Devhub:
Devhub is a free website builder where you get free web hosting. The service offers unlimited free subdomains and also you can use your existing top levels domains for free. The website builder is truly cutting edge, offers drag and drop features with tons of modules. The sweet part of devhub is that these modules can help you make money, and you can add, remove, edit, move around modules in a matter of seconds. However, you get to share the revenue made from these modules with devhub. This is a great option for many people who lack technical expertise to build websites and also do not wish to pay for web hosting. The number of theme options is quite limited relative to blogger and WordPress. Just like blogger, you can customize themes with your own CSS.
Wix:
If you are a fan of flash websites, wix might be a good solution for you. There are a lot of themes to pick up from and the interface is good. There are ads served on your website though and you cannot use your existing domains for free. This is a good fit for invitations, portfolio kind of websites. However flash websites suck at SEO and hence if you need a business page, wix is definitely not the way to go.