Take some time to figure out what the purpose of your site is, who you are trying to get to your site, and what is the most effective type of site for that purpose.

Perhaps you want to have more than one website. The time to plan for that is now. Perhaps you want a blogging site or a forum, or you might want the freedom to add these later.

Whatever you choose, the selection of your domain name is one of the keys to making your site successful. Basically there are two ways to go: a brandable name or a keyword name.

A brandable name is one like Yahoo, Google, eBay, or Amazon; names that in the beginning did not tell the user what the site was about but through promotion have become household words like Coca Cola and McDonald's. Our domain name website
BizAddy.com is one we chose this type of name for.

A keyword name is one that has terms based on common internet search terms. Our site WebHostingWithDomains.com is an example of a keyword name.

Now it is possible to combine the two if you are clever AND if your site topic allows for it, but that's a difficult thing to pull off.

The choice of name extension is also very important. Dot.com is the way to go, with dot.net a distant second. Everything else is an also ran unless you are a charitable organization and then the dot.org is appropriate. But if you go with dot.org, don't forget to register the dot.com name also, and perhaps the dot.net, to prevent others from profiting from your name.

You want to get your website found by the search
engines, and your choice of domain name can be a factor for this. Search engine tools can tell you if people are searching the web for words in the domain name you are thinking of registering.

One of these is at Overture.com. Type in the general area your website will cover in the search box at Overture, and the list you will get gives you what terms people actually type in the search boxes at Overture, Yahoo's pay per click search engine. You can drill down into the search terms by clicking on any of the terms your search generates.

If you are having trouble selecting the name you had in mind, most good registrars have a name suggestion tool. Be sure you are happy with your domain name choice before you buy it. If you change your mind you're just stuck with it. There are no refunds at any domain seller I know of.

Just a few more tips: Make your name as short as possible. Avoid hyphens and numbers. Stick to a dot.com name if at all posssible. Avoid trademarked or copyrighted names! You don't want some big company's legal department challenging your use of their name.

Avoid cute trendy names. Try to have your name make sense to the ear. And make sure that it sounds the way it is spelled. Your name should be able to be passed along verbally. A good test for this is:

If you tell someone your website address verbally, can they just type it into their browser address window and get to your website. Or will they end up elsewhere, possibly one of your competitors?

If you visit the site in the resource box below, you can subscribe to the five part email course that goes into choosing your domain name in greater detail, with URLS for additional free resources you'll find helpful.