Make it Memorable

A domain name that is easy to remember, spell, and type is ideal.  You want your visitors to be able to return to your website with little effort.  Branding can help immensely with the memorability of a domain name, but can take a long time to establish.  The following are some tips for an easier to remember domain name.

1. Keep it Short – A short domain name is much easier to remember, spell, and type than a long one.
2. Related to your Site – Keep the name related to the content or business of your site.
3. Unique – Do some research to make sure your domain name has few to no similarly named active websites.  You do not want your visitors to confuse your site with another site.
4. Avoid Hyphens – Sure, hyphens can look like a premium name, but your visitors will not remember it.
5. Make it a .COM – Many people believe a .com top-level domain is the only reputable choice out there.  A memorable website should always be a .com wherever possible.
6. Avoid Copyrights and Trademarks – It is never a good idea to leave your site open to lawsuits by copyright and trademark holders.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Considerations

Your domain name can be a major factor in search engine rankings.  By selecting a domain name which is related to your site content, you will create a better user experience and search rankings.  If possible, try to include a popular keyword in your domain name.  I chose to include the keyword “webmaster” in the domain name for this website because it is popular and related to the content of this site.

Resources

The following websites are an excellent resource for help in finding and selecting an available domain name for your site.

Nameboy – This site will help you select a domain name by using one or two keywords you input to find potential matches.  This is one of my favorite sites to use when looking for a new domain name.

MakeWords – Here is another great tool for finding domain names using keywords to generate a list of potential names.

StuckDomains – The site keeps a database of previously registered domain names accessible by a simple keyword search.  Try using a few different keywords related to your idea for a website and see what other people have thought of.

Where to Register a Domain Name

GoDaddy – This site is by far one of the most popular domain name registrars.  This is the registrar I use for my domain names and I highly recommend them.

Network Solutions – Here is another popular choice for registering a domain name.  They have a good set of tools available to manage your domains.

1&1 – This is a popular site for cheap domain registration and hosting.

Some Important SEO Factors

Some important factors for SEO are HTML syntax, page title, page description, keyword research, links, and the amount of content on a page. Well-formed HTML syntax makes the web page much easier to read, not only by other people, but by search engines as well. The goal is to make your pages as easy for the search engines to crawl as possible.

The page title and description are very important for search ranking, as well as the search results page. The title is placed in between the “title” tags in the header section. The description is placed in a “meta” tag and is also located in the header section. When looking at a search results page, the title will most often show as the title of the search result, and in many cases, the description with be used for the search entry description.

Keyword research is important to determine what terms to use in your page. There are a number of keyword tools available to aid in the search. The most important factor to consider in keyword research is to try and figure out what keywords a visitor would enter into a search engine to find your page. Working these keywords into the page content can help increase the visibility of your page for that particular search.

Links are important to SEO for many reasons. You can look at a link as a vote for your web page. Some websites will have more influence than others when linking to your page. For example, an established and popular website will have more influence than a new site.

The amount of content on a page is important because the search engines need to have enough content to figure out what your page is about. Having a good amount of content is important to the user experience as well. The search engines are trying to provide their searchers with the best experience possible when returning a list of results. By keeping the user experience in mind when developing and writing content for your website, you should achieve good results with the search engines.

• Establish Your Company as an Expert
• Business Differentiation
• Establish a Community
• Increase Website Traffic
• Search Engine Optimization Benefits
• Other Benefits

Establish Your Company as an Expert

As you write more and more blog posts about your company and industry, visitors will begin to see your company as an expert in your field.  Being known as an expert, or the expert, your company will gain more customers through your website and via referrals.  You will likely end up increasing your business significantly through blogging.

Business Differentiation

Do your competitors have a blog?  If not, then you will have a competitive advantage over them, and if so, you will no longer be at a disadvantage.  The blog is an excellent tool to differentiate yourself from your competitors, even if they already have a blog.  When done correctly, a blog can set your company apart from your competitors and increase your business significantly.

Establish a Community

By setting up a blog, you are also setting up a community on your website.  Assuming you will allow comments on your blog post, and you should, the visitors from to your site will be able to interact with you and other visitors.  The community is an aspect of social networking and will keep visitors returning to your website.

Through this community, you can communicate directly with customers and business partners.  You will be able to gain invaluable feedback on your products and/or services.  The feedback can help you to refine your product and/or service offerings before you take them to market, thereby reducing expenses.

Increase Website Traffic

By blogging, you will attract and retain new customers and business partners.  The offerings of your company will be spread virally by the existing community.  All this can lead to a substantial increase in traffic within a short period of time.

Search Engine Optimization Benefits

A blog has many features which make it very search engine friendly.  Most blogs are part of a Content Management System (CMS).  The underlying markup code required to display the page is created by the CMS, and is well-formed.  This makes the readability of your website much easier for search engines.

The content of a blog is often updated frequently.  The more often your blog is updated, the more often a search engine will visit and index your website pages.  Frequently updated could mean a couple times a week, or several times per day.

Other Benefits

Some other benefits of a blog are low cost, easy to setup, and no technical knowledge is required.  Hosting a blog on your own domain generally runs less than ten dollars a month.  For the benefits a blog provides, this is incredibly cheap.  A blog is easy to setup and requires no technical knowledge because it is generally part of a CMS system.  In many cases, it is as simple as installing, selecting a theme, and you’re ready to go.  When writing a page or a post, a visual editor will write the markup code for you as you write your entry.

A Content Management System, or CMS for short, is an application designed to facilitate the creation and management of content.

So, do you need a CMS?

Whether or not you may need a CMS solution depends on the size of your website, the amount of traffic you receive, your skills as a webmaster, the number of users who will be adding content to the website, and many other factors.

Website Size

The content of a large website can be very difficult and tedious to maintain if a content management system is not used. Most CMS solutions will store the content in a database in an organized fashion. The administration interface of the CMS should provide an easy way to manage the content.

On the other hand, a CMS solution for a small website may be overkill. A website with a small number of pages is easy to maintain, but may need a content management system solution as it grows.

Website Traffic

The amount of traffic a website receives can be a significant factor in deciding whether or not to use a CMS. Static html pages have always been the fastest loading, whereas dynamic pages need to be compiled or pull information from a database. The processing behind these operations can add time to the loading of the page. It is important to consider the amount of processing that takes place behind the scenes in a content management system. Fortunately, there are many lightweight CMS solutions for high traffic websites.

Webmaster Technical Skills

A content management system can be an easy solution for a webmaster who lacks the necessary skill set to create their own website. Most CMS solutions contain a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor. The editor allows for the creation of website content without HTML or other website specific knowledge.

There are many templates available which can be easily installed in many content management systems. Some of these templates are free and some come with a small cost. Another solution to creating the look for your website would be to hire a website designer. This can come with a significant cost, but you’d be getting the exact look and feel you want for your website.

Website Users

In many situations, a website will have more than one content provider. In this case, it may be beneficial to consider a content management solution, as a good CMS system will have the ability check content in and outt. The purpose of check in and check out is to prevent more than one user from editing the same content at the same time. Multiple users on a static website can create many problems with content updates without the help of a CMS system.

Conclusions

There are certainly other factors to consider in whether or not to use a content management system, but hopefully the information contained above will help you in making an informed decision.