What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet - William Shakespeare

Shakespeare may have been right, but in today's world if you call a rose a flamingo, for example, you run the risk of no one finding your rose. The same is true of the domain name you choose for your businesses' web site.

First let's answer the question "What is a domain name?". A domain name usually has the form www.businessname.com . The "www" stands for "world wide web" and is the default prefix. You can use other prefixes other than "www", which are called "subdomains", but I don't want to get too technical here. The next two sections of the domain name are the interesting ones.

In our example www.businessname.com, the middle section "businessname" needs some thought on your part. Say for example, you own a driving school called "Sam's Wonderful World of Driving". Your first instinct may be to use the domain name www.samswonderfulworldofdriving.com (assuming it is available). Next you may think "This name is too long for people to type - I'll use an acronym like www.swwod.com instead". The trouble with both approaches is that the domain name doesn't contain keywords people would use to search for a driving school. The shortened version (www.swwod.com) has no keywords in it at all and in reality people don't type your domain name into the browser, they use a search engine to find you and just click on the link.

Optimizing your web site to appear high in the list of search results for search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing is a huge industry called SEO. SEO stands for "Search Engine Optimization". The expense of performing SEO on a web site by an expert can easily make the cost of creating your web site look like chump change. Why not start out on the right foot when picking your domain name? It will make Search Engine Optimization easier for you in the long run and save you some money.

The domain name is very important to search engines because it is not easy to change. There are tricks people have tried to use to get around this, but the search engines have gotten wise and actually rank you lower if you try to use them. So now you are down to picking a single domain name that search engines like and describes your business at the same time.

Getting back to the example of the driving school, let's say Sam's business is located in Bridgewater, New Jersey and most of his clients are from Bridgewater. Hmmm... Bridgewater, New Jersey, driving school... These are the keywords Sam should be thinking about. Notice I left out Sam in the list. Clients don't care if he is called Sam, Fred, or Joanna as long as he/she is nearby and can teach driving. So the next step is to try variations of these keywords to find a domain name that is available and uses the keywords or variations of them. By variations, I mean using NJ instead of NewJersey, for example.

There is a very handy tool (though not 100% accurate) I use when researching domain names. It is called PCNames.com and quickly shows if a domain name is available. So Sam may try the following until he finds a name that is available and has the keywords that will attract searchers to his web site:

1. www.drivingschoolbridgewaternewjersey.com
2. www.drivingschoolbridgewaternj.com
3. www.drivingschoolbridgewater.com
4. www.bridgewaternjdrivingschool.com
5. www.bridgewaterdrivinginstitute.com

and so on. You get the idea. One last point concerning the last section of the domain name, go for the ".com". That is unless you are a non-profit organization, use ".org" and educational institutions, use ".edu". If you are a business however, do not waste your domain name using a ".net", or ".us" suffix. Keep researching until you find a domain name where the .com version is available. You can always purchase the .net and .us versions to protect your domain, but I usually think in most cases it isn't necessarry.

So now you have the perfect domain name for your business. If you need my help finding a domain name for your business, don't hesitate to call me. I can also help create a stunning web site that matches your new stunning domain name!

I hope you take a look around my site. I hope to add interesting articles as time goes on. I have a cool tool that tells how well a web site has been built. Yes, it's true, there are guidelines and standards for building web sites. Don't assume that the more expensive design houses follow those rules any better than your one-man shops either. This tool will help pull the curtain back so you can see for yourself if the designers put the time in to following established guidelines. 

I also appreciate feedback (just no flame comments please). Enjoy your stay here!