This is the year 2022. Many readers of this blog post may be starting a new website during this year to do their business online or start a non-profit organization or jump onto the bandwagon of the ever-growing e-commerce industry. But, whatever you want to achieve in the year 2021 you have to plan for it. After you have chosen the industry you want to get into, the next obvious question may be to choose a domain name for your business website.
How to choose a domain name in 2021? Generally speaking, it may be a no-brainer for many of us. However, believe me, it may be THE most important success factor in your online business in the years to come. It is going to determine your identity as a business and it is going to determine what brand your business will carry. But, is it an important decision you should make even before starting a business? In this blog post, we plan to address this and other related questions so that you could become fully informed about your choice of a domain for your business.
How To Choose A Domain Name in 2022?
What Are Domains?
Domain names are the unique, human-readable Internet addresses of websites. A domain name is an address you type in the address bar of a browser to look for a website. An obvious example could be https://www.google.com/. Another one is https://aliyana45.sg-host.com/. Now, you got an idea of what a domain is? If not, please read on.
Domains are made up of three parts: a top-level domain (sometimes called an extension or domain suffix), a domain name (or IP address), and an optional subdomain.
The combination of only the domain name and top-level domain is known as a “root domain.” Many visitors type a root domain only to open a website. The “HTTP://” is part of a page’s URL but not its domain name and is known as the “protocol” as is shown in the image shown above.
Let’s look at each of these domain elements more closely:
What Is A Top-Level Domain?
Top-level domain (TLD) is the formal term used for the suffix that appears at the end of a domain name. Some examples of top-level domains include but are not limited to the following.
- .com
- .net
- .org
- .edu
While we’re probably all familiar with the TLDs mentioned above, there are over 1,000 possible TLDs from which you can choose. This includes things like .book, .clothing, .dog, and .lifeinsurance (to name a few), as well as TLDs associated with specific countries or territories like .jp., us., UK., etc. (United Kingdom) or .dk (Denmark). These country- (and sometimes region-) specific TLDs are known as country-code top-level domains or ccTLDs. However, the most obvious choice among businesses all over the world is the .com extension.
SEO Best Practices For Domains
Being an entrepreneur who wants to succeed, your goal should be to choose a domain name that is easy to rank in search engines like Google. you should choose a domain name that works for SEO and branding. So, how do you decide which domain is more SEO-friendly? We have listed up some important considerations for you to think about. These are as follows.
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The domain you choose should be memorable
Try to find a domain name that is easy to remember, easy to pronounce, and easy to type. It should be short enough so that your visitors can pass on your website name to others easily.
- Try to choose a domain related to your industry
- Try to keep it short and straightforward
- Put all your website data at one domain only
- Try to use subfolders whenever needed instead of subdomains
- Avoid hyphens in the domain name if possible
- Avoid non-.com top-level domains (TLDs) as much as you can
- Favor subfolders/subdirectories over subdomains
- Don’t sweat over domain age
- Try to choose a domain name that is easy to remember
- Don’t use confusing words in the domain
- Choose a domain name that is easy to pronounce and easy to spell
- Use broad keywords instead of specific ones