Generally, majority of people who intend to build a website for their business or brand for the first time do not really understand what a domain name is. In a layman’s term a domain name is basically the address that one types into a browser in order to access a certain website. In other words, it identifies your website as no two websites can have the same domain name. It is for this reason that you are supposed to search for the domain name that you would like to register as yours before settling for it. You can only register it if you find out that it is available after conducting the search.
There are Different Sections of a Domain Name
Notably, a domain name is subdivided into different sections using a dot (.). For example in the address, www.forinnstance.com, “forinstance” is known as second level domain. The second part of domain name is the identity of your site. Going in line with this, it can be the name of your organisation, store, business, blog among others.
On the other hand, the third segment of a domain name which in this case is “.com” is the TLD. The top level domain is the segment that shows the purpose of your website. Some of the commonly used TLDs include: .com. edu, .org .net and .gov among other country specific TLDs. It is good to note that .com indicates that a given website is a commercial one. For instance, .edu is for an educational website while .org is used by websites of charitable organizations. Examples of country Specific TLDs include .uk, (for United Kingdom) .au (for Australia) and .ke (for Kenya) just to mention a few.
The Key Features of a Good Domain Name
Now that we have understood what a domain name is we can now go a step further and examine the key characteristic of a good one. The first characteristic of a great domain is simplicity. You should come up with a common name that is easy to remember and spell. This is because you do not want people to struggle remembering the name every time that they want to visit your website.
Secondly, if you want to come up with the best domain name then you should include a keyword. A keyword is a phrase that allows people to know what your website is all about. A name with a keyword makes it easy for the potential customers to find your website when they search for the services that you offer.
Moreover, whenever possible you should always make sure that the domain name is the same as your website’s name. If it is not possible to come up with such a name then you should try and make sure that it is as similar to the name of your website as possible.
A Domain Name Matters
One of the reasons why this element of a website is important is that it affects Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). A good domain name, especially one that contains a keyword, is important if you want your website to rank better. This however does not necessarily mean that your website will not rank if the name does not contain a keyword.
Secondly, a short and simple domain is easy to remember. This means that you will have high traffic as clients will not have a difficult time remembering your website’s url every time that they want to visit it.