10 Tips On How to Buy a Domain

Written by: Jeff Pratt

In essence, buying a new domain name to grow your new or existing business online isn’t that difficult like many people assume. Although buying a domain name may be cheap, it’s wise to choose a decent domain name that would suit the full purpose of your business online — at least choose that which will take people little time and effort when trying to look up your domain both online and offline – it should be easy to type, easy to spell, and easy to remember. Here, tips and tricks on how to buy a domain for your business online.

1. Buying a .com, .net, .org, .co etc,.

Choosing or picking a specific domain extension for your business online can be overwhelming and tricky. Back in the days, there was a time getting a “. org” required you actually ran an organization, although nowadays anybody can get this domain quite easy. Of all the domain name extensions, the “.com” is the most popular and used by horde of people when looking up stuff online. In fact, it really is the best choice and an effective tool for offline marketing, such as print advertisements, billboards and other kinds of offline promotions. So, go for the domain with a “.com” extension, every time you want to grow your business online.

2. How to incorporate your business name into the domain.

First of all, your company name should give people an impression of what you do. Many times when people find a domain that clearly represents a company, they develop trust and have a tendency to use it more often.

3. Short and long domain names.

Domain names which are short and simple usually have more value and are easy to search online compared to ones which are much longer with complex, tricky names. If you can articulate anything between 3-4 letter words for your company more likely it will draw an avalanche of visitors within your niche — visiting your site every day.

4. Domain names seo and local seo.

As a business owner first you’d like to consider, why would people link to, share, or even talk about my site? Many people would answer “compelling content.” SEO Pros and search marketers understand this very well, so often they purchase domains that contain targeted keywords in order to increase CTRs and gain higher rankings on search engines. On the other hand, careful selection and use of local SEO can make a whole world of difference in terms of geo-location, which would always win over other generic domain names because they give much stronger signals – highly essential for geo-targeting, improve performance through higher click throughs on search engines results page, and it’s much easier to convince webmasters or potential online directories to link your site to other local domains.

5. Keeping your domain registration information private.

You should keep your domain registration information private at all times or else you’d risk it being stolen and owned by another person with similar interests. Thus only go to a registrar whom you choose to buy from. Also don’t post in a forum seeking other people’s opinion about whether a particular name is good or not or such purpose, you might risk losing such a domain to another person – who may end up using it to serve the same purpose as you intended.
6. Buying multiple domains for your business. In case you have doubts about whether one group of domain name is better than the other, simply buy them all! New domain names are cheap and, besides, you can always let a domain expire if you decide it’s of no value to you anymore.

7. Your domain is your key, why you should register the domain instead of your web designer.

Rather than relying entirely on other third parties like directory services and social media, having your own domain name is the most convenient way that gives you great control of all information published about your business online and its terms of service. It serves as your address on the internet where people can easily find whatever you’re selling or promoting online.

8. Register for 3-5 years and remember to renew your domain and set on auto renew.

In order to keep your business up and running online, it’s important to register its domain for a lengthy period, such as anywhere between 3-5 years. This would create an impression to the audience within your niche that what you’re promoting or selling online is authentic and, hence, would also draw trust among your audience. Consequently to minimize the risk of losing your business online, it’s important to renew its domain before it expires. Set on auto renew to receive alerts on when your domain is about to expire. More so, a grace period of about one or two weeks is usually provided by most registrars as an update that you’re supposed to pay for your site’s domain name or else end up losing it after the grace period is over.

9. Don’t pay too much, find domain coupons for as little as $1/first year.

Before you get to the point of handing over cash, make sure you’ve done extensive research to get an idea of the amount of cash you can actually save before buying a domain name first. The internet is full of handful of sources where you can easily find domain coupons, for as little as $1 in the very first year. These coupons come in handy all the time, every time you wish to save a few bucks for a rainy day.

10. Keep it simple, keep your domain name short, simple and easy to remember.

More than likely you’d want other people to recommend your company through its website and find ways they can easily share email addresses. Thus its domain name should be simple, quite short and easy to remember at all times, lowering the chances of losing potential traffic to other sites due to misspelling errors.

All in all, do you know who your service provider is in which you’ve protected your company’s domain. Do you have the address, account login and password credentials for each of the domain you’ve registered? Even if you may have someone else manage these services for you, at least make sure you own and control all the various parts of your presence online. Meanwhile, if you’ve not yet already bought a domain name for your fledgling business online, seek any potential sources online to create awareness within your audience and also protect your brand online.