How Much Should a Small Business Budget for Marketing?
So, you’ve come up with a great idea for a new business or maybe just need a new website for the existing business that’s been around for some time now. In both cases, you take that next logical step and focus on building an online presence.
That starts and ends with a website. But, to create it in the first place, you need to register a new domain for that website.
And that is precisely the topic of this guide.
Although we have dedicated an entire blog post to find the perfect domain name (which we highly recommend you check out by the way), in this blog post we are going to deep dive into the opposite.
We’re already picturing the shock this sentence caused a lot of marketing experts, growth hackers, and business owners.
In other words, in this blog post, we’ll be playing “devil’s advocate” and stating the facts and reasoning behind why we think that finding the perfect domain name is not that important.
Without further adieu, let’s get into it.
Let’s start with the basics first. A domain name is what the visitors will type in their browser to get to your website.
Currently, there are over 1 billion websites on the internet (yes, with a “B”) and that number constantly grows every day. That means that if you search for a domain you will probably discover that someone has already registered a “.com” version of your domain unless, of course, you have a unique domain with uncommon words.
A big portion of those 1 billion websites is registered as “.com” websites. And, if a domain name becomes viral on a different top-level domain (TLD – like “.net”, “.us”, etc.), chances are that someone already bought the “.com” version of it.
For example, a domain called “pizza.com” was bought back in 1994 for $20 (plus annual fees), which was recently sold for $3 million.
In other words, picking a domain name is difficult and competition is fierce.
Now, there are standard practices such as having a domain name that is easy to spell and memorize, as well as ideally including your business name.
That in particular is important from a business and marketing perspective, as it will also positively (or negatively) affect your website visitors and ultimately conversion percentages.
Simply put, if a client can’t easily spell and write your website, it would be harder to memorize and that adds additional friction in your sale or lead funnel.
The question isn’t “does it affect your SEO” because obviously, it does. A great example of this is any scam websites with weird letters, lots of numbers, etc. In the past, they used to get results but over time people started to understand and know the difference between domains they can and can’t trust.
If that is something that any customers can recognize, you can rest assured that search engines analyze and understand the dynamic as well there.
That means that a poorly chosen domain name can damage your SEO ranking. Although in the past, you could get away with stuffing the domain with keywords and rank on the top of the pages, that has changed in the past decade.
So, when we choose a “good” domain name, it helps with boosting our search engine rankings. And as Google’s algorithms continue to get updated, they will place more and more importance on content quality and user experience rather than keyword density in domain names.
While all 3 have a specific definition, the question of “website vs domain” or “URL vs domain name” is really common. To help you understand the terminology, here’s an explanation of what these 3 terms mean:
There are a couple of parts of the domain name, which would be easiest to explain by using “www.seojokers.com” as an example. This domain name is constructed by 3 ket pats and those are:
If you are going for picking the perfect domain name, the best way to choose a second-level domain name is by making a list of a way potential candidates. After the list is compiled, the next step is by narrowing down the list and seeing what’s available to them.
Once you’ve selected the second-level domain, then check which top-level domains would best suit the latter (and if your TLD of choice is available of course).
Every single part of the perfect domain name is important and that includes the top-level domain (or TLD for short).
There are three main types of TLDs:
gTLD is the most common type of top-level domain, which doesn’t have any registration restrictions because you can find a whole bunch of “.com”, “.org” and “.net” websites which capture a big percentage of the total domain names out there.
Additionally to these 3, there are new and good alternatives like “.online”, “.store”, etc.
sTLDs are handled by private organizations, which means that, unlike gTLD, you need to follow specific rules and have specific permissions to register a domain name with that kind of TLD. The most common examples of these kinds of top-level domains are “.gov”, “.edu”, etc.
Practical types of TLD are ccTLD, which represents the country/location in which the business is based. Examples of these are “.us”, “.co.uk”, “.ca”, etc.
Practical in the sense of making the whole experience tailored toward the target audience, and if that audience is in a specific country or region, having a ccTLD would overall bring better results.
Although the domain name does affect your SEO rankings, conversions, and total website visitors, it isn’t the only and most important factor that makes or breaks your business. We have illustrated this with 2 examples:
You’ve built a business with a strong client base and a physical location, so now turning your attention to expanding online. The same loyal customers that you already have will still purchase your products/services regardless, no matter what kind of domain name you have.
They can leave you online reviews that can help you build social proof and give clients the extra “push” to convert or make perform your desired action.
Also to that point, even if you don’t have the perfect domain name, over time with social media posting, ads, case studies, and blog posts, you’ll start to expand on your brand awareness your target audience will be more familiar with your products/services, brand, domain, etc.
You’ve just had an amazing idea for a new business, so you start thinking about the business and website name.
Just like the first example, you may not have the perfect domain name, but instead of wasting time contemplating it, you focus your energy, time, and money on building an efficient and fast website, starting with ads, case studies, and blog posts to build brand awareness and start generation clients.
While you could have spent the time thinking up the perfect domain name, now you use your time wisely and start to collect reviews from clients about their overall experience with the brand.
With this, you get ideas on how to improve and build social proof from potential clients as well. And over time, this creates a snowball effect that increases your client count and revenue, and you start to hire more and more people.
Just to look back at it, the positive feedback loop started when you took action, and not coming up with ideas on the perfect domain name.
Again, you can do that if you want and/or have the time, that’s totally up to you.
Although the overall user experience is important, if we weigh it on a scale, your marketing strategy and sales funnel are way more important than the actual domain name.
Having said all of that, now we can move into the best random domain name generators which will effectively help you to save time to not have to worry about finding a domain name from scratch. Once you get a list of potential domain names, you can use a few guidelines to find the best one for you.
Even though we’ll go through the best domain name generators, there are a few guidelines for you to keep in mind:
A domain name that has all of the above boxes ticked will stick in the minds of users even long after they see you on social media, your website, or on ads. Psychologically, when a user links a domain name with a business and what kind of services/products you’re offering, it will keep your brand in their minds and start to form positive affirmation.
We’ve listed the best domain name generators because finding a domain name is difficult, although important. Luckily there are several domain name generators, which give you creative suggestions that are still available for registration.
Below, we’ve listed 7 domain name generators that can help you generate ideas from one or more keywords:
There are others available out there that you can choose from, but these we’ve seen the best reviews for generating domain names.
NameStation is the first on the list and it’s a great tool that can generate thousands of domain names based on the keywords you include. To get started, you can create a free account using your email or Facebook account.
Once logged in, you can search for your keyword ideas, and NameStation will provide results based on the availability, extensions, name length, and other components related to the domain name
They also have intelligent learning to suggest names similar to the ones you’ve previously liked. Another feature is “rare gems” where you can explore deep search techniques to discover names with rare words. These unique domain names will help you stand out from the crowd.
With over 290,000 names generated, NameStation has been a consistent go-to software for anyone that is trying to pick the right domain name.
Nameming is probably one of the domain name generator tools with the easiest and simplest method for us, as most of the domain name generators require you to add a few different settings to the get results that you are looking for.
A huge advantage to going with Nameming is that it’s extremely simple to use.
All you have to do is write a few keywords into the search bar. Once you’ve done that, the generator with produce a wide range of domain names available, and at the same time sort them under broad categories just as “fun”, “new”, “short”, etc.
It has built-in-house artificial intelligence to create short, brandable domain names that are suitable for any type of business.
Another amazing option is Instant Domain Search which, as the name suggests, quickly generates available domain names which are for sale.
One advantage is that your ideal domain name is, and Instant Domain Search will let you know if that domain name is available or not. While pretty much all of the domain name generators do this, they have additional functionality to this feature that suggests to you good alternatives that are currently available if your desired one isn’t.
If you are searching for a tool to quickly generate great domain name ideas, this one would be great for you.
Another simple and efficient tool is DomainWheel, which offers a mix of helping you identify all of the domain names available based on your search, while at the same time providing you with the tools to register the name on the spot.
An advantage to using DomainWheel is that it will provide a list of original domain names, and at the same time display it to you in 16 different TLDs that you can choose from. The reason is that you might have thought that a gTLD would be best but then found out that a ccTLD would better suit your purposes.
It also offers additional features that might come in handy such as domains with similar-sounding names to what you searched for.
Nameboy is a simple yet effective domain name generator. It offers a good amount of ideas after you include your keyword/s. Additionally, it categorizes the domain names that are already taken or available for purchase.
The initial search of 30 available domain names is extremely quick while it might happen that the “show more results” would take a bit more time, which is dependent on the keywords you include.
It’s quite a challenge to come up with the perfect domain name for your business, but that’s where a tool like Wordoid comes into play. Just like all of the domain name generators, it helps you save time but offers you the best available domain names depending on the keywords you include.
Although the website design isn’t the least modern of all of the options in this list, it still does the job. And it’s quite in-depth too.
You can set up your preference by selecting the language, quality, pattern, and length of the domain name, as well as whether to show only available names to be purchased.
One of the features that Namecheap offers is an advantaged domain name search called “Beast Mode”, which allows you to add up to 5 thousand keywords, enter your price range and preferred TLDs, as well as additional search options.
While you can be as specific as you want, once you add your preferences, it will present you with a list of the available domain names that you can choose from.
A cool feature is that Namecheap will give you also a list of already purchased domain names when were they registered and an option to make an offer to the domain name holder to purchase their domain name.
So, if you’re perfect domain name is already bought, you can always spend a bit more to get it.
Again, if you want to invest your time and energy in finding the perfect domain name for your business, feel free to click here. But as we said, in this blog post we are going in a completely different direction.
In both cases, when choosing a domain name, there are guidelines out there for you to follow. Although not a hard-coded law, it would be useful for your business if the domain name:
Just like your services/products, website design, funnels, and the customer journey (and that includes the domain name) are all centered around your customer. When making any business decisions, you always have to consider your customers as the main priority.
Simply put, by prioritizing search engines over how easily your customers will find you online, you’re much more likely to make a mistake.
If you don’t have that much time, simply think of your target audience (or ideal buyers persona) and run by the list of domain names by these questions:
If all 3 are a “Yes”, you’ve landed yourself a good domain name for your business.
Adding a keyword to the domain name has more impact on the current and potential clients than search engines but it’s still not insignificant. Even without entering the website, the client knows what kind of service/product you can offer to solve their problem.
An example of keyword stuffing would be “seomarketingwebsitesolutions.com” which was difficult to get right the first time we wrote it, let alone for our clients trying to find us online.
Simply put, keyword stuffing looks terrible from a client perspective and it will not help search engines rank you high.
Imagine you’re on the phone with a potential client and you attempt to spell your domain name with a hyphen in it. They are easily forgettable and even if you have 2 words in the domain name, it’s better to keep them together.
It’s easier to get clients to memorize and type “seojokers.com” than it is to type “seo-jokers.com”. A small difference that can potentially cost the business a lot of visitors, and conversions.
Many users, when typing a domain name forget to include the “the” or “a/an” of the name, which then causes an increase in traffic to another domain name with the “the”.
Even Facebook was originally thefacebook.com but they removed the “the” to avoid confusion.
If your business name is not available as a domain name, one other method you can try is an exact match domain name. That means whatever the clients most frequently search online – to go with that keyword.
One famous example of an exact match domain name is “DivorceLawyer.com” instead of using the law company’s name. This is a tactic that you could use because users most commonly would search for “divorce lawyer” rather than your company name.
And although Google has devalued websites with exact match domain names in the past to prevent incorrect appearance on search results, customers will continue to search for those keywords online to find what they are searching for.
A bit of a long shot but still worth considering as an option.
Let’s say that you’re dead set on getting a domain name with a “.com” version.
Before looking at alternatives, it’s relatively important to plan for the overall customer journey that is going to bring the maximum amount of impact in terms of traffic, time on the page, and conversions.
Most of the results will be brought by the service/products, ads, website design, and funnel but also a smaller part of that is the domain name, namely how easily can it be written and memorized.
You might consider using a unique word for your domain name but that would also mean a steeper learning curve for your users to memorize, write and spell the name. An example of “what not to do” would be Flickr, which lost millions of unique visitors to Flicker.com
As we mentioned previously if your main traffic is going to be coming from organic search by offering free content, prizes, etc, then in that case having that perfect domain might not be as important.
In any case, if your favorite domain name is not available, we have some tips about how to proceed moving forward:
If your sources of on-website traffic are coming from alternative ways other than direct type-in traffic, we would recommend finding another alternative apart from .com.
The truth is, if your domain name is decent sounding, most people don’t even notice if your domain name ends with .net, .us, .co.uk, etc. More and more companies are already switching to other alternatives other than .com since a high percentage of these domains are already purchased.
They’re even new TDLs such as .agency, .online, etc which you might consider using.
If the specific domain name that you want is not available, try to find a similar-sounding domain name with perhaps a different order of the letters. The idea will remain but the domain name would be a bit different.
On that note, some of the domain name generators above also give you similar-sounding alternatives that you can pick from when you include your keywords in the search option.
These tools will help you find alternatives to your desired domain name (with a plot twist – in other languages), you can use try NameMesh.com or BustAname.com in others.
Now, you may not like the presented suggestions, but they will give you creative ideas to work with.
When one order of the words in the domain name is not available, we can always try flipping things around and see if that would be available. So, if you’ve wanted “www.seojokers.com” and it’s not available, you can always try the opposite and see if you’d like it.
If you only have 1 word in the domain name, you might want to consider adding one or two, which will give you additional suggestions. This brings us to the last suggestion:
If the domain name that you want is not available, another thing that you could do is to add another word to the name, which will give you more room to be creative with the order and at the same time get a closer connection with your customers.
By adding additional keywords, you can let your users know what kind of service/product you’re offering, what kind of solution you providing, your mission or vision, etc.
Again, quite of few of the above domain name generators give you additional alternatives and even if you wanted one word in the domain name, they recommend additional alternatives with a few keywords.
Although the domain name does affect your SEO rankings, conversions, and total website visitors, it isn’t the only and most important factor that makes or breaks your business.
There are other more important factors such as ad placement, the product/service we’re selling, UX on the website, etc.
To focus your time and energy on more impactful aspects of your business, we’ve listed how you can pick your domain name without much hassle. Best practices are to be easy to write, memorable, and doesn’t sound “spammy”, and that is something that you can get from the domain name generators above.
Once you have a list of a couple of potential candidates, run by the 3 questions above to make sure it fits your customer journey, and you’re done with picking a domain name.
Now, we know that other aspects of the business like maintaining and building a great website are a lot of work. That is why we SEO Jokers are happy to have a call with you to discuss how we can help you effectively run your website and scale for the future!
To find out more, click here.
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