Sid - Blogging for Newbie Webmasters’

So, finally you have decided to publish your own website or blog and the step one to do that is to choose a domain name. Let me try to guide you a little bit so that you can go along the right track.

Domain Name based on website theme.

If you want to share information about pet dogs, your domain name should reflect that. Just look at this domain name, it is a store selling pet supplies and pet products for healthy and happy pets Petsmart.com

The job is much simple now with such a well selected domain name. When anyone finds it, he soon gets an insight of what the site is all about. So a domain name that reflects website theme is a good choice.

Same site title (Business Name) and domain name:

It is better to use the domain name same as the site title ( Business Name ). People remembers your site by its title. So, when they type the title, the will land at your home page. Is not that convenient?

There are many example of this one but I would ask you to consider the followings.

Site Title/ Business name: Google Inc.

Domain Name: http://www.google.com

Next comes eBay or Amazon, both of these sites use the Site Title/ Business Name as their top level domain names.

So, it might be better to find a good domain name first and then only register for a business name.

Keyword rich domain name

This is good from Search Engine Optimisation perspective. If your domain name includes keyword then it is more likely to be picked up by the search engines. Petsmart.com is a good example and there are many others as well. But going on to register a domain name based on keyword has never been easy as you have to do some keyword research to really find your niche.
Tips: Shorter is Better
Do not use special characters in your domain name. If you do it, it is more likely that visitors will forget it and land in a somewhere else. Also it is difficult to communicate domain names containing special characters.

Do not use long domain names, use short domain name focussing on one or two common words which should be either your business name/site title or preferred keyword.

Spell you domain name correctly. Nothing worst than a mis-spelled domain name keeping in mind the factors like spelling variations as well. The word color (colour) is spelt differently in different parts of the globe. So use the most suitable variation keeping in mind your target visitors.
Once you have found the one or two good words that should be there in your domain name use a Domain Name Generator tool to see varieties of domain names still available for you to be picked up.

Finally your domain name is the first identity of your website in the internet. Take extreme care while choosing it.

Goodluck with your new website.