ESYB2 083 - How to Choose a Great Website Domain Name
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[00:00:00] In this video, let's talk about how you can choose a good domain name for your business. It's very important because it's your brand. And it's very often the very first thing people see about your business, even before they come to your site when they choose to click on it or not from somewhere on the web.

So people think you can't get a good domain name, but you can still get plenty of great good. com domains. What you should try to do is keep it relatively short. Two to three syllables. If you go longer, it's okay, it's not the end of the world, but you should make an effort to stay short on it. And usually, they should be English words that are easy to spell.

I say usually because what if you have an international business or a non US business, then of course you don't need English words. But generally, you want words that are simple and easy to spell and easy to remember. Because people will Forget everything. I used to have a website, come hike.com about hiking come hike.com.

I thought it was so easy. Two English words, two syllables [00:01:00] impossible to forget, I thought. And then people would forget all the time. They would be like, go hiking. What is it? Is it go hike? So then I realized people will forget to make it as easy as possible for people. And of course, give hints about your brand.

It doesn't have to be exactly what the business is, but at least a little bit of a hint to it. And of course, before you get your domain, you want to check social media handles and existing trademarks to make sure that that name that you're thinking about is not trademarked. Some people ask, what about getting exact match domain?

Exact match domain are like, let's say if you're selling shoes. Your domain will be shoes. com. And so when people search for shoes, your site will have a much higher chance to come up in Google because it's obviously the main issues, the search issues. And so, especially earlier on, like 10 years ago, 15 years ago, The exact match domain used to rank amazingly well in search and they were very, very popular.

Of course, [00:02:00] it's very hard to even get an exact match domain for something very lucrative, but it's still possible at times. The question is, is it worthwhile? It still makes a difference, but it also has some problems because if you need to change direction later. Then your exact match domain will restrict your brand flexibility because that same exact example comehike.

com If I wanted to expand into camping or skiing, it would be hard because the name hike is right there in the domain. So if I had named it come do outdoor stuff, that's too long. But you see, I did it more generalized like outdoor. then of course camping and skiing would be all under that. So exact match domains.

They do help now a tiny bit for SEO, but they also restrict your brand. So it's a decision. If you aren't sure that your business is going to be exactly the same in the future, you might want to stay with a more general brand and that goes for your domain [00:03:00] because specifics, they just decrease your flexibility.

And what you want to do is stay away from that net that biz, that info. And even sometimes co. I know co are popular now, but a lot of consumers outside the tech world, they're not sure about this co and they're always going to ask, is it co? Is it com? You don't want the domain to be distracting from your core business.

You want to get to the more important things. And, uh, one caveat is country specific. Domains are okay. So in France, it will be fr. In UK, it will be co. uk. There are far more domain names available with those extensions than com. So it's easier to get a great domain. Of course, that's only if you're doing a business in France or in UK.

If you're doing a US based business, it don't make sense anymore. Now let's talk about what not to do. Don't put numbers in your domain. Don't put hyphens like this example, xyz abc, [00:04:00] hyphens are just weird. Don't violate trademarks, this would be a trademark violation and Facebook would come after you. Like Facebooker.

com is an example, right? I'm sure you can't get that domain anyway, but if you could, don't. So you always want to check. If you're infringing on existing trademarks, there are ways to check on your own. You just Google around for it. This course is not about checking for trademarks, but you should definitely Google how to check for trademarks.

It's very simple. Trademarks are publicly available information and you can just find if something is trademarked. And don't rush into a domain. A lot of people think, Oh, if I don't get it now, people will buy it. Most of the time, that's not true. Take a while before you decide because You'll be stuck with it for a long time if you get it wrong, so get a lot of feedback on your domain, get a lot of opinions, and only buy it a little later.

So let yourself think about it, and, uh, avoid weird spellings, because people just won't remember that. And every time people forget or they feel confused, they're gonna feel [00:05:00] bad about themselves and feel stupid. That just causes them to go away or not engage. So, the easier you can make things for people, the better, always.

Now, buying domains. You can get your domain name, your first domain name, for free. If you buy hosting on bluehost. com, they have that perpetual good offer all the time. Or you can get a very cheap domain on GoDaddy. com. If you Google for like GoDaddy discount coupons, there's a ton of active coupons, so you can get a discounted domain name for a dollar or two or something like that.

So buying them is no problem. So that's essentially how you go about shopping for a domain and researching your domain and getting the right one. Now, I'm actually on GoDaddy. com and I'll show you how I would Look for a domain. There are many, many better places where you can look for a domain and domain suggesters, but they're a little bit outside of the scope of this video.

This is just a beginner introduction. So what you would do is like, let's say you have some idea for a business, maybe [00:06:00] it's a coaching business. So you will do strong coaching. com. You would really literally type that in here and they will tell you if it's available. You see, they say it's taken. So they tell you all these other ones are available.

Like they give you suggestions. Strong coaching services. Okay. It's a boring sounding domain name, but it's clear so it's not terrible I wouldn't buy it though, but it's passable and you would see you would browse here Don't get any of this Moby club nothing that side don't get any of this But if you have anything like dot com suggested strong coaching center, okay Like if that resembles what you're doing then sure that you will get that domain, but then you can just keep searching Instead of strong coaching, you may be like epic, right?

So you would just try different words. Of course, that one is taking a lot of the domains around coaching are taken, but if, as long as you play around and you maybe use a, um, the source would give you ideas for different keywords. And you try like one or two terms like epic coaching, strong coaching, [00:07:00] and then you'd get into like something interesting.

Now, here's an example that I just found randomly. Now this violates. A lot of our rules, so I would not recommend this per se, but here's the sky is the limit coaching. It's quirky and fun, which is good, but it's a little too long and it's too many words and it sounds awkward. So I would not get this, but you can see how you can play around with the prefixes and suffixes.

You can take out the sky is the limit and you can say dream coaching of course this will be taken but you will just play around, play around and you would always keep trying and eventually you'll stumble into some interesting domain names. This is a process that takes time but over time, maybe days, keep playing around, keep thinking, keep being creative.

So even as I'm thinking, I thought of like, oh better you coaching and I typed it in here and it was taken but still it's an idea. So keep getting these ideas and eventually you'll stumble into. Clusters of terms around which [00:08:00] domains are not taken. And then as long as they fit the rules we outlined, you can grab one and they will represent your brand well and they'll be professional.

