Your domain name is important to you. It will be your website address where you can send your friends & family to view your site. It is the website address that Google and other search engines will send people to. Therefore, choosing a domain name is important, and you want to get it right the first time. You cannot get a refund on a purchased domain name if you find you made a spelling mistake or changed your mind about the name.
Two types of domain name
There are two main types of domain name. The first category, which I suggest you avoid, is often referred to as “Exact Match Domain”, or EMD for short.
An EMD is a domain name that exactly matches a phrase you want to rank for in Google. For example, if you decide you wanted to be #1 on Google when anyone searched for “Healthy Coconut Oil”, then an EMD would be something like:
· Healthycoconutoil.com
· Healthy-coconut-oil.com
· Healthcocounutoil.org
See how the exact phrase makes up the domain name?
This used to work well in Google, and in the past, we could easily rank sites for phrases by choosing an EMD for the phrase we were interested in. However, things have changed. EMDs can cause you problems, including getting your site penalized in Google, or even banned if you are not careful.
I, therefore, suggest you choose my second category of domain name – a brandable name.
A brandable domain name is one that is memorable and could be used as branding. Think of Google itself. This is a brand name we all recognize, but what would have happened if they had chosen “best search engine” as an EMD? Bestsearchengine.com doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?
I recommend you sit down and think about your domain name carefully. Avoid choosing a name simply because it contains a phrase you want to rank for. Instead, think of a memorable name that people will remember when they hear it.
Imagine being out and about and you see a friend. You want to send them over to look at your new website but you don’t have a pencil to write the name down. The domain name you choose should be memorable enough that your friend can remember it once you tell them.
TLDs
TLD stands for Top Level Domain and simply refers to the extension given to your domain. Possible TLDs include .com, .org, .net, .co.uk, .de etc. There are new TLDs coming out on a regular basis and it can all be confusing for beginners.
Some TLDs are country-specific, e.g. “.co.uk” is used for websites targeting the UK.
My advice on choosing a TLD is simple.
If you only want to target one country with your site, choose the TLD for that country:
.es for Spain
.co.uk for the UK
.de for Germany
If your site has a global appeal, choose a .com.
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