20 Tips on Creating Your Domain Name

The following are just a few, hints and tips on choosing and creating your own domain name:

1. You don’t need a website to register a domain name, you can simply “park” your domain name for possible future usage. Many people and companies do this simply to protect the name from the competition or because the intend to use the name at some future date.
2. You can register domain names that are a single word, a name or a phrase using almost any combination of ASCII characters.
3. Your domain name cannot include spaces.
4. Your domain name must only use letters, numbers and hyphens ( dashes “-”).
5. Your domain name must not begin or end with a hyphen.
6. Domain names are not case sensitive, so don’t use capital letters.
7. During the registration process you may see your domain name depicted in all capital letters, just ignore this. The actual registration will be made in all lower case letters.
8. When you tell people your domain name use capital letters to make it easier to read, i.e. KingSolutions.com and not kingsolutions.com.
9. Your domain name must be unique. You cannot have more than one web site with the same address.
10. Try to include keywords in your domain name, i.e. MikesDogKennals.com or WeddingCakes.com.
11. Register as many extensions of your domain name as possible (within reason). Definitely register .com, .net. .biz and your country extension.
12. Consider adding a prefix in front of your desired name, i.e. MY, OUR, YOUR, SHOPdomainname.
13. Consider adding a suffix at the end of your desired name, i.e. UK, USA, STORE, COMPANY, CORP, SOURCEdomainname.
14. Consider using your family name as your domain name, i.e. JohnSmithFamilyTree.com.
15. Consider registering common misspellings of your chosen domain name.
16. Try adding hyphens (dashes “-”) between words to make them more readable, i.e. John-Smith-Family-Tree.com.
17. Always check for your domain names availability before going any further, don’t build a web site and then try to register the domain name.
18. Once you have your domain name use it in your email address, i.e. jenny@john-smith-family-tree.com.
19. Make sure you know when your domains renewal fees are due. You don’t want to loose your domain name because you forgot the renewal date.
20. Never change the domain name of your website once its created and ranked on search engines. Doing so will affecting its search engine rankings for at least six months.

You can research your domain name choices at any of the registrars listed in my article, ‘Where to Register Domain Names“. Most of these registrars provide domain name registration, domain name hosting, free domain name search facilities and some even give you a FREE domain name if you accept their domain name hosting package.

You may also be interested in the following articles in this series:

• Best ISP for WordPress and eBusiness

• Domain Names – What You Need to Know

• 20 Tips on Creating Your Domain Name
• Add on Domains – What Are Add on Domains?
• DNS Servers – What Are DNS Servers
• Does a Good Domain Name Improve Search Engine Ranking?
• Domain Name Extensions – Which Is Best?
• Domain Name Registrars – Who Are They?
• Domain Name Registration – Where And How To Register
• Domain Names – How Do They Work?
• Domain Names – What Are They?
• IP Address – How to Find an IP Address for Any Url
• IP Address – What is an IP Address?
• Older Domain Names – Do They Rank Higher?
• Sub-Domains – What are Sub-Domains?
• The Right Domain Name – How to Find Choose Good Domain Names
• Top Level Domain (TLD) – What is a Top Level Domain?
• Where to Register Domain Names
• Your Own a Domain Name – Why You Should Buy One One