Choosing a Domain Name

Despite the mystique, there's nothing magic about domain names. A good name, like a good telephone number, won't make you rich or famous. But a bad name, like a bad number, can make you hard to reach.

When it Counts
Most visitors will get to your website by clicking a link in an email, website, search engine or directory. And most will visit, maybe even bookmark your site, without ever learning your domain name. The intrepid few will arrive after seeing or hearing your name, then keying it into a browser. It is for those keyboard navigators that a good name counts.

Make it Relevant
Ideally your domain name should reflect your business, and look good on your business card. For example, Arleen E. Goscinski, ASA -- a residential real estate appraiser -- selected HouseAppraisals.com for her domain name. That was four years ago. Today, with appraisal-related generic names long gone, Babette Cohen, ASA, who specializes in personal property appraisals, picked BCohenAppraisals.com for her site.

Ranking Myth
Both Arleen and Babette selected domain names including the word "appraisal" to describe their profession, not to influence search engine rankings. The myth, fostered by domain name brokers, that having key search terms in the domain name improves ranking is just that -- a myth. It is not supported by careful research or careful reading of published guidelines.

Using Your Name
Arleen's domain name describes her business. Babette's incorporates her trade style or DBA. Another option, for a sole practitioner, is to build on your own name, as Robert J. Connelly, ASA did when he chose BobConnelly.com for his antiques, auctions and appraisals website. The pitfall: a cute or informal name that sounds like a vanity site or -- gasp -- like a blog (personal journal).

Keep it Simple
To make it easy to remember and type, pick a domain name that's short and simple to spell. No hyphens, underscores, non-standard abbreviations, or words or names with multiple spellings (e.g., MacDougal). And stay away from domain extensions other than .com. Many browsers, and most people, will automatically append .com to a name, regardless of the true extension (i.e., .biz, .net, .org, etc.).

Do it Now!
Search engines don't give preference to domain names containing keywords, but they do deprecate free domains (like Geocities.com/BestAppraisals) and secondary domains, (like Earthlink.net/BestAppraisals). So register your own domain name, i.e. BestAppraisals.com, and do it soon, even if you're not ready to build a website. There is a finite number of dot.com domains, and the supply will indeed run out soon.

Thanks to the American Society of Appraisers for permission to reprint this article written by Lou Bruno for their Newsline newsletter.