If you are looking through GoDaddy.com as most of us have at one time going through all the opportunities, then think carefully about what you are doing. Most of the premium domain names will have gone so this can leave you scratching around and ending up with something that is long and difficult to remember, not great for getting your business known, even if it does only cost a few pounds.

Have a look out there and see if you can find a parked domain name that includes your main keywords, and what you want to rank for then contact the person that owns that domain name. If it is a premium domain name then you will often be quoted a price of around ?10,000. I can hear the response right now, we can't afford that! However careful consideration needs to go into the decision on affordability of a domain name.

Let's consider the facts, suppose the domain name costs ?10,000 and that particular search term gets 200,000 searches per month. Also suppose you are running or thinking of running a pay per click campaign for that term and you can be profitable at ?1.00 per click. The number one result in the free search results will get about 55per cent of all clicks through the search engines and if you are in position 2 or 3 you will get approximately 10 per cent.

Now if you think about it, even at the 10 per cent rate, 20,000 clicks at ?1.00 per click will cost you ?20,000. Now what do you think?

Now consider the fact that there are a number of companies that will finance premium domain names and you can pay them back over the course of a year and so you will be able to factor this is to your monthly marketing budget.

Having said that though, there is no guarantee that by having your keywords appearing in your domain name, you will be at the top of the search results. Nothing can guarantee you that.

However if you have an existing website and you are rebranding then, using a permanent 301 redirect, you will be able to redirect a domain name with a great history and quality links to this new domain. In addition this new domain will have age, relevant, existing content and pages and links. If you properly consider SEO during the redesign, development and content writing process then there is a good chance you will quickly get to the top of the rankings.

When determining the value of a domain name it is worth considering the following points:

?Is there a keyword in it?

?How many people search for that keyword on a regular basis?

?Is it memorable?

?What is the history of the domain name (number of on-topic links, level of traffic, TLD of the domain name)?

?Does it have a hyphen in it? Domain names with hyphens are less valuable, but may be a good option for SEO purposes because the main keyword may be in the domain name.

So, when you are looking for your domain name look around and take your time. If you can't find the term you are looking for consider buying a premium domain name. It might not be as expensive as it initially appears.