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[W724]Who Owns The Domain Name

by Murad Ali, Mur

The right domain name is important to let your potential customers know what your business is about and where to find you. The easier it is for them to figure this out from a glance the better off you are. For example, a business that helps websites gain exposure through writing and submitting articles would do much better under the name article-agent.org then blogpublishingandmarketing.com

Let us analyze the information for a second. The domain name article-agent.org has the word ?article? and ?agent? in it. ?Article? means that the site has something to do with articles, writing articles or hosting articles while ?agent? has the concept of someone working for you associated with it. Therefore, together it means that the site is doing something for you with articles. It seems like it fits with the overall concept of gaining visitors with articles.

If we looked at blogpublishingandmarketing.com the three words that jump out are ?blog?, ?publishing? and ?marketing?. It sounds as though the site publishes blogs and helps market them instead of marketing websites. The concepts are completely different and therefore may confuse your customers. They won't know what your website is really about and may never actually visit it.

Therefore, the name that you use in your website address is important so that it tells the potential customer and visitor what you actually do and why you do it. The closer the name to the actual function of the site the more visitors you will see and most likely the more customers you will get.

The website domain address should also be short. The longer it gets the more difficult it is to remember. This can create a potential problem for customers who want to write down the site, remember it or try and type it in the address bar. For example, the words ?dog food? in the domain is much better then ?dog food lovers and people interested in dogs?. One will make your head spin while the other makes sense.

The right domain name will enhance your marketing strategy a few times over. For example, marketing is all about getting your message out. If your message, your images and your domain name are in parity you will be providing your customers with a single and obvious message. This obvious message will serve them when evaluating your business.

Marketing is about using all the tools you have in front of you and developing a few that you didn't know existed. You can spend loads of money on your website but if your domain name is not congruent you will loose these potential customers. Your reputation, your businesses success, and your income depend on your messages. With this in mind you should not forget that your domain name is part of that message.

Once you are comfortable with working online, you should buy a domain name for your site or sites. Domain name registration, if you do it right, is one of the key components of having your site rate high in the search engines. The right domain name is memorable, and can get your site to rank higher than other names. The wrong domain name won't do you any good at all.

The Basics of Domain Name Registration

The first thing you have to do is come up with a good domain name for registration. Don't even think about a one-word domain name; they're all gone at this point. Instead, come up with dual-word combos. If you're putting together a professional site, try your name before anything else.

Don't get fancy with spelling when selecting your domain name registration, or use 2s and 8s to represent their sounds. You can try the number 1; that sometimes works. You can also try the names of products you offer, or a description of your site content offerings: Romanceforgirls, popcornpalace, fluffykittens. Memorable is always better; short and memorable is best, but very difficult to accomplish.

Come up with a couple of dozen names that will do for your site, and test them on a registry. Don't buy a domain name for which the .com extension is gone, but you have access to the .net or .info. These domain names are not by any means as valuable as the .com. If you pick up the .com, though, and you expect the site to be lucrative or have a lot of competition, it's not a bad idea to pick up the other extensions as well. Domain name registration is NOT expensive, and if you register in bulk you can get an even better price.

The .UK Extension

This doesn't mean you should avoid anything but .com. If you have a business in the United Kingdom, you have access to the .uk domain name set, which UK customers are likely to look at before anything else for UK-specific businesses.

If you anticipate most of your business will come from British customers who are aware your business is in Britain, the .uk extension may be a better choice than the .com; and if your customers are unhappy with Internic's control of Internet domain registration or they are very pro-Britain, the .uk extension is certainly a better choice.

If you're fortunate enough to find both extensions for your domain open, and if you run a British company, it doesn't cost much to buy them both, and you definitely should.

It also gives your online presence an immediate ?identity? geographically which can be crucial in building online relationships- where trust is a key component. By being a .UK domain, you are very likely to gain UK clients.

The .UK domains market is one of the fastest growing and lucrative registration areas on the internet.

Tips for Domain Name Registration

Have a website ready to plunk into your domain as soon as you buy it, and submit it immediately to the search engines. The search engines take time to index new sites and your domain name registration is only as valuable as the search engines make it.

You can also have more than one domain name pointing at a single site. If you've bought multiple extensions for your domain name (as in the previously-suggested .com/.uk combination), you can set up your site under one domain name and then direct traffic from the others to the main site. This is called web traffic forwarding and has been around for years. It may be as simple as parking your domain name on a server and putting a line of code on the page, or as complex as going through another website to use their online web forwarding services.

When you do register a domain and start building traffic to it, go out and renew for multiple years before your renewal is due. It is surprisingly easy to forget to register your domain name on time, and if someone else sneaks in and registers it, you've just lost a ton of work on that domain.

By making your domain name memorable, you will help other webmasters remember your site easily when building anchor texts in their links- a crucial component of SEO.

Final tip: don't just think about price when looking for a domain registration company- also think about quality of service. While you shouldn't be paying over the odds, it really is better to be safe than sorry and go with the more established registrars. Then you can have peace of mind that should any problems arise, you will be well looked after.

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About Author

Both Murad Ali & Adrian Lawrence are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Murad Ali has sinced written about articles on various topics from Insurance, Business Loans and SEO Articles. Murad Ali is a three time published book author, a human resource manager, a business professional and runs an article marketing service at