A major element to every website is the domain name that points to the servers of the website. A good domain name for a website can bring some great benefits to a website, whilst a poor one will make it extremely difficult for the website to gain any traction to being successful. Not only does a domain name play a big role to the recognizable brand of a website, a good brand name will also contribute to the SEO of the website too. For this reason, here are 6 tips you can use when it comes to buying a domain name for a website.
 

Always Buy .com

There are many different types of domains you can buy with different endings. Some of the main endings to domain names include:

• .com
• .co.uk
• .net
• .org

Although there are many others you can choose from, it is advisable to stick with the above four. ‘.com’ is, by far, the favorite choice for an ending of the domain name. Although it will be more expensive, the benefits of having ‘.com’ as opposed to any of the other endings will be worth the extra cost of buying it.
 

Buy .net if Cheap

You could buy just the .com version of you website. However, if your website becomes very popular, then there is a likely chance that other domain names for your domain, with different endings, will be bought by people. For this reason, it is a good idea to buy the .net at the minimum, as well as potentially the .co.uk and .org too, redirecting the domains to your .com domain.
 

Make a Brand – it’s Cheaper

There are mainly two types of domain names you can use. Those that include keywords or a completely different and unique brand. In general, domains with keywords will cost a lot more than domains that contain unique brand names.
For SEO, it is better to include keywords in your domain name. However, if money is tight, then coming up with a new brand will make it extremely cost efficient when purchasing the domain name.
 

Shorter the Better

The shorter the domain name, the easily it is for the web user to remember the domain name, increasing the chance of direct traffic.
As well as this, shorter domain names tend to get extra SEO weighting, helping to push the website and articles on the website higher up search engine results page.
 

Check Social Media Usernames Aswell

When you choose what your domain name should be, you should also check to see if the name has been taken or not on social media. It is a good idea to have the domain name the same as all of your social media channel usernames.
 

Don’t use Hyphens or Numbers

The use of hyphens and numbers have two knock-on effects. The first is that it makes clear to the web user that you did not get your first choice domain name, hence the need for hyphens or numbers. As well as this, hyphens and numbers will negatively affect the SEO effectiveness of the domain name.