Choosing your domain name is an important decision to make

When you launch a new site, one of the most important decisions you need to make is to choose the right domain name.

For many years, SEO strategists have developed many methods to achieve higher search engine rankings, and domain names are a factor that is considered significant in the SEO game.

In this article, we investigate how your domain name can affect your SEO and search rankings. We’ll also look at a few things to consider when choosing an SEO friendly domain name.

Is Domain Name Important for SEO?

Yes, it is.

If we look only at the domain name, it cannot be denied that people should recognise your brand, your company or what your website is about.

An SEO optimised domain name tells people what the site is about, and what products and services it offers etc. In this case, the domain stands out in search results and is more likely to be clicked.

Spammers buy domain names containing targeted keywords because they get results: higher clickthrough rate and higher search engine ranking.

So, domain names affect SEO. The right domain name allows you to attract your target audience and achieve search engine rankings.

Apart from SEO, why Choose the Right Domain Name?

It Affects your Reputation

Imagine searching the Internet for a local company that offers cleaning services, and you’ll find two options: one with the URL professionallaundryservices.com and one with the URL wecleanyourclothes.com.

Which one do you prefer to do business with? Although it may be subtle, the domain name you choose can influence the opinions of others about your business.

For this reason, you want to choose one that will help your target customers see you as a professional and industry expert.

The Right Domain Name Makes your Target Audience want to do Business with you

Studies have shown that 97 percent of consumers use the Internet to find local products with about 83 percent of them going further to make a purchase or make an appointment.

What happens if your domain is too hard to find? This can happen if you choose a name that is long, hard to remember, or inappropriate for your business.

By avoiding such situations, you can make it easier for your target market to find your company and get in touch.

Does Changing the Domain Name Affect SEO?

Admittedly, if you change your hosting provider and thus your domain name, your SEO will suffer certain consequences that may affect your ranking.

So, the answer to the question of whether changing a domain name affects search engine optimisation is yes, it does.

For this reason, many site owners are reluctant to change their hosting provider and domain name even when it is clear they should.

You prefer to stay in a hosting company that does not meet the needs of the creative and business aspects of your site, which is not a good way to achieve continuous success.

Website owners would not even consider changing the domain name for fear of affecting SEO rankings.

The bad thing about SEO is that even a small change can affect your ranking.

If your domain is changed, all links on your site will stop working in the old domain.

No search engine can categorise broken links, which means that the content cannot be categorised.

It’s true that a low page ranking may have a negative ranking for traffic to your site.

The good thing is that with the right steps you can change your domain name successfully, without losing too much SEO benefits.

How Do You Choose an SEO-friendly Domain Name?

To choose a good SEO-friendly domain name for your site, you must follow a few basic principles that focus on SEO and branding.

Relevant and Memorable

The domain name of your website needs to be relevant to your industry and easy to remember, given that a relevant and memorable name lasts for a long time in the memory of the user.

Easy to Spell

A domain name that you can easily enter with an error increases the likelihood of users moving to another page due to minor spelling mistakes.

This could be one of the reasons del.icio.us changed its domain name to delicious.com.

Short

A short domain name is easy to remember, easy to spell and inexpensive.

Most popular sites have an average 9-letter domain name.

Also, avoid using a hyphen in the name, because it is not only misleading, but is also considered spam by search engines.

Unique

A domain name that sounds special can easily be labelled as a brand, while more general domain names cannot make a strong brand impression.

Unique names such as Google, Facebook, Pinterest etc. are very unusual, impressive and stand out from the crowd.

Always remember not to choose domain names containing the words “best”, “top” etc.

Remember that if you have to tell people that you are the best, you are not.

Authority is built, not bought, and trying to force your authority into the mind of users will make building a brand difficult.

Domain Extension

While it is true that .COM is the most popular and preferred domain extension, choosing gTLD (general TLD) instead of .COM is the most effective way to differentiate your site from others in terms of SEO and branding.

In addition, your site’s gTLD offers a specialist niche.

In addition to gTLD domains, there are many TLD domains that indicate the company’s geographical location.

These are called top-level country code domains (ccTLD).

For example: .us = USA, .uk = United Kingdom, .au = Australia, .ca = Canada, .in = India, .co.nz = New Zealand, etc. So, if your website is catering to visitors from a particular country, you may benefit more by using a ccTLD. For instance, businesses in New Zealand can use nz domains rather than struggling for a .COM

Although there are many less common gTLD domains, they should be avoided because they are not easy to remember.

Of course, this is true unless it makes sense to your business, such as .pizza or .service.

Keep in mind that by default though, when entering an Internet domain name, most users use .com to find the company they are looking for.

Final Thoughts

In short, every element of a company’s website affects SEO rankings, including domain name, website structure, content and link structure.

As a company, your main goal must be to service users.

The more often you do this with great content, the better your site will be.

Make the user experience simple, unforgettable and valuable, and the highest level ranking belongs to you.