Hello again! Good to have you back. Hope you have a wonderful day today.

You’re going to set up your own website. You’re excited and can’t wait to start internet marketing. You’re thinking of names and asking your friends, “What do you think about …?”  You get a list of reputable sites offering domain registration and scroll down to the slot where you input your desired domain to see if it’s available. Oh, wow! It is.

STOP!  Do not proceed with the registration. You have to back up a bit and do some of that boring old research.

Remember, you asked yourself why you wanted a website and, I’m sure, you made careful notes of your reasons and your goals.  These have a great bearing on the name you choose for your site.

If you want a website to form a content site for a group of people with similar interests as your own, then the name obviously needs to reflect those interests.  It can be witty, a play on words or merely descriptive.  The choice of name is important but not crucial to the success of the site.   For example, there is a funky site called Storm the Castle which is a site about old weapons and you will find lots of fun stuff there.  It’s successful and ranks well with Google because of its content rather than because of its name. It does carry Adsense adverts to cover its costs but it is not primarily a money-making site.

However, once you decide to set up a money-making site of any kind, the choice of the name itself becomes a business tactic.

One – it has to sound a deeper resonance with your future visitors, and,

Two – if possible, it has to be search engine friendly.

To achieve both these objectives you will have to research your target market. This is known as your niche in the world of internet marketing. If you think of the whole market as a pie, then your niche is a thin slice of this pie.  As competition in the whole marketplace is intense, most marketers, whether they are selling their own products or acting as affiliates for others, will focus each project they start on such a niche.

You will need to find out what your niche is looking for; whether it be the solution to a problem, a cure for a type of pain, satisfaction of their curiosity, need for training or the fulfilment of some other deep-felt desire. You then decide how you are going to give them what they want.  Either you produce a product yourself, an e-book, a membership site or a learning site.  Once you’ve identified this niche, you can build up a profile of your typical buyer and use that to give you ideas for your domain name to fulfil point One.

Deeper analysis, including keyword analysis, will guide you to fulfilling point Two. This is a vast area and will be covered in a later post.

Some people work the other way round – I do.   They find a product they would like to produce, promote or sell and then dig down to find who, if anyone, wants it.  But the ramifications for the choice of domain are the same.

Other points to consider are whether the domain name will look all right when the component words are run together for the web address.   You may want to consider using underscores or hyphens.  If possible, try and register a domain with a .com ending as these are perceived as having more authority and of being more reliable.

You don’t want to be like me.  I have domains I can’t use because I registered them in a flash of excitement and can’t find anything to do with them.

So think carefully and do your research before you register that domain.  For practical advice and suggestions for domain registrars, you can check out Chris Fox’s Google Terminator.

Website creation is all the rage at the moment.  Not only is it much easier for non-techies to set up a simple website quickly and cheaply these days with all the open source software available but also the word is spreading about this new hyperspace world both as a marketplace and as a vast publicity generating machine.  So what is the first question you should ask yourself?

Why do you want a website?

That may seem simplistic but it’s amazing how many people don’t ask themselves that question and answer it  properly before they dive into their site creation.  The answer you give should influence the kind of website you choose. Your site’s appearance, tone and very structure will depend upon your reason for setting it up. If you start off on the wrong foot, you will have to backtrack or start all over again and this can be costly in time and/or money. So ask yourself the question and answer it fully before doing anything.

What are the main reasons why you might want to set up your own website?

Whatever your reason, it is now possible to set up a site very quickly and cheaply.  The promise of five minutes I should take with a pinch of salt. If you are already experienced you can probably set up a basic site in five hours.  However,  beginners or newbies will probably need anything from five days to five weeks depending on how quickly they can put the pieces together for themselves, or follow the training program they have chosen.

If you want a good basic DIY package for a simple site which is backed up by the promise of personal answers to any problems you may have, you can’t really do better than Chris Fox’s Google Terminator.