This is a very important topic because a GREAT domain name can make a HUGE difference in your sales.  There are 5 things that are crucial when picking the domain name for your business. 

 #1) Own your domain name!

 I recommend that you don’t even consider building an Internet business unless you OWN your own domain.  It’s just too much work to take the risk of somebody else reaping all the rewards because they are the actual owners of the domain.  I’ve seen stuff like this happen too often.  It even happened to me once and that’s why I don’t get involved with any project unless I own the domain name!  Get your own domain at Go Daddy.com

 #2) Never use a Virtual or FREE domain

 First of all, don’t even consider using a FREE domain or a virtual domain.  Many portal sites such as Yahoo provide free domains.  Free domains do not belong to you and can be taken away at any time.  How would you like to spend years marketing a free domain and then have the company that provided it go out of business!  Also, don’t get conned into getting a virtual domain because they are worthless as well.  A virtual domain will usually have the form of something like http://www.acme.carwax.com

Notice the extra dot in the name.  Virtual domains are really just a trick done on a server that allows companies to create thousands of these pseudo domains very easily without having to register them.  Don’t do it!! 

 You should also have your own IP address and not one shared by others.  Make sure that you ask your hosting company if you will have your very own IP address.  If they tell you that you will not then change hosting companies.  From my experience in the search engine promotion industry, I found that web sites without their own IP address will not do as well on some search engines.  Don’t ever let your hosting company talk you into getting a virtual domain or not having your own IP address under any condition!  There are too many hosting companies that will give you a real domain and your own IP address to throw away free search engine traffic like that.

 Instead go to one of the many domain registration services and buy your own domain name.  It will be the best money you ever spent and will be yours for as long as you like. The company I use is Go Daddy.com

#3) Dot Com still Rules

I’m still a big believer in getting a .com domain instead of any of the newer ones.  Even though it’s harder to find a good .com domain name, its still the one people go to first!  You don’t want to invest all the time and money in a non dot com site and here’s why.  Suppose you really wanted www.carwax.com but it was already taken so you registered www.carwax.net instead.  Here’s what will happen.  After a lot of hard work, you eventually start getting quite a bit of name recognition on the internet.  People start to remember your domain name but some will forget that it was carwax.net and instead end up going to carwax.com!  A good portion of your customers will end up going to carwax.com by mistake at some point and many will start buying from that site instead.  Owners of non .com sites are actually giving a lot of traffic away to their .com counterparts without even realizing it.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t like working for other people when I’m not getting paid! 

#4) Make Your Domain name Catchy if possible

If you can make your domain catchy it will really help people remember it.  Some great examples of catchy names are Yahoo, eBay, and Priceline.  Notice that these names don’t really describe what these companies do but they are catchy so people remember them.  Another great example is http://www.doubleyourdating.com.  It tells exactly what the site is all about AND it’s a catchy name.  It’s really the best of both worlds.

#5) Use Your Keywords in your domain

If at all possible use your keywords in your domain name.  Your keywords are the words that people would type into a search engine to find you.  Many search engines give a higher priority to a site that has keywords in the domain name when those words are searched for.  Some examples of using keywords in your domain name are:   

           www.student-loan-consolidation-blog.com

            www.bestcarwax.com

            www.theinternetmarketingsecrets.com

            www.doubleyourdating.com

            www.promoteyourwebsite.com

 Notice how I put dashes in the first one. That is a trick I have learned that really helps if you are trying to build sites for content and placing contextual ads like those from Google and Yahoo or Chitika. There is a great tool available that will allow you to test a domain name to see what kind of ads it will pull. You can find it at http://www.resultsgenerator.com/adsense/