There are also so many questions around what is the right domain name to register for your business and what to look out for. The most obvious questions being, is my domain name available for registration? This however isn’t necessarily the most important question. There are lots of factors that one would need to consider prior to registration of the domain name, so we below we discuss some of the important areas that you need to review.
What is a domain name?
A domain name is essentially your website address i.e: www.yourbusiness.com.au
But do you register a .com or a .com.au?
The best way to answer that is: Where is your target audience located? A .com / .com.au / .net.au / .uketc… are known as TLD’s (Top Level Domains). When it comes to SEO, Google will always give preference to a TLD in the person’s searching location for example: in Australia a .com.au (Australia domain) will be given preference by Google over a .com (International domain). With that in mind, if your target audience is in Australia then we would recommend looking for a .com.au domain.
What about adding the business keyword to your domain name?
This is a wonderful OLD school SEO tactic where people who registered domain names with the main keyword they wanted to rank for; example: www.wordpresstraining.com.au – Google no longer holds this as a major searching factor anymore. It does help to a degree but no where near as effective as it used to be.
What about using Hyphens( -) in a domain name?
We recommend avoiding hyphens in domain names for several reasons. The first being that most people don’t know what a hyphen is, or they leave it off and end up at someone else’s website. Also hyphens strongly correlate with spammy behaviour and decreases domain name readability and memorability.
What if there is another similar way to spell your domain name?
Example: www.seegate.com vs www.seagate.com Sometimes you will come across a domain name that can be spelt in several different ways and can create confusion for the end user. If this is the case, then if possible –we recommend registering all the spelling variations and point them to the main one. If you can’t because the domain name variation is already taken, then we recommend going to look and see what business is running that domain name –if it is strong competition or conflict of interest to you, then we recommend thinking of another domain name to use instead.
Should you register multiple domain names?
We only recommend doing this if there is a similar way to spell your domain name (as mentioned above) or for brand protection. Having multiple domain names no longer help with SEO, even if they are redirected to your primary domain.
QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE:
- Shorter the domain the better
- .com.au for Australia, .com for International
- You don’t have to add keywords to your domain name
- Check similar spelling variations
- Avoid Hyphens.
If you have any other questions that you would like help with, please do not hesitate to contact our team. Or if you are ready to register your domain, then click here to get started.
