A crucial building block in setting up a website is the choice of a domain name.  Whether you are a doctor, lawyer, plumber, aluminum siding salesman, or if you want to start up a website to display photos of your newborn online, the entire enterprise begins with the choice of a domain name.

Next you might ask- “What determines a good domain name choice?”.  The answer is, it depends.  What I mean by that is if your site is just going to be devoted to family photos and events, domain name choice isn’t as important as it might be otherwise.  Why not?  Most likely in that instance you’re not looking for tons of traffic, your site is probably only something you are going to produce for family and friends, to let them know about the latest goings on.  So your domain name choice in a case like that is not as critical as it would be if you were looking for tons of traffic to the site.   

The point is that in a case like this, there is no real concern with getting a lot of visitors to the website other than friends and family and coworkers, so there is no real harm in naming the website ANYTHING, because you will be giving out the website address to a select few people.  BUT……

What if you are looking to attract customers?  And to get as much traffic coming to your site as possible?

It can bring huge dividends to have a domain name that draws attention to your website or company.  Put some thought into how people search.  For example, if your company sells insurance or doughnuts or bowling pins or toilet bowls, find a way to incorporate WHAT YOU DO in the website domain name.  So be sure and choose carefully when deciding on a domain name.  Best case scenario is to get the name of your business as a dot com or dot net, etc.  In lieu of that, at least try to get the category of business that you are in incorporated in your domain name.  For example, a jewelry website should have a domain name like jewelry.com or jensjewelry.com, something that immediately associates the domain name with the theme of the site.  It’s all about branding, and making a lasting impression on the target audience or customers.

You need to search the WhoIs database to find a domain name that has not already been registered.  For a quick search of your desired domain name, I have conveniently placed a domain name search engine on StartMyWebsiteToday.com for this very purpose.  When searching for the domain name, the results given will instantly show whether or not the domain name is available, and if so, give you the option to immediately register it.  If it’s not available, several alternative domain names will be proposed, to help you fine tune your search, or possibly giving you an acceptable alternative domain name to register instead.