What’s in a name you ask? Uncle Arthur is here to explain that there is a lot in a name, especially in the world wide web. What you name your website has many meanings and effects. Now center yourself for these words of wisdom Superbloggers!!

Today Uncle Arthur brings you 5 Truths of the domain NAME. When you buy a domain name you can’t just say, “I want what I want dot com.” Buying a domain name takes thought and some planning - so read these 5 Truths:

1) Keep your domain name as simple as possible. Keep it easy to read, easy to say, easy to spell, easy to remember. The reasons for this truth are that a long and complex name has a much higher chance for misreading or misspelling.

2) Make the name as keyword relevant as possible. This makes it easy to remember and gives better search engine rankings too.

3) Buy each form of the name with plural or hyphenated variations if possible. This strategy lessens the loss of customers who might misspell your primary domain and it protects your name from the competitors who buy domain names similar to yours to forward to their website, and take your traffic.

4) If you intend to have a web site for commercial or business reasons register it with the .com extension. The .com extension has more appeal, it’s what most people will automatically enter when going by memory. So if the .com version of your domain is not available, choose a different domain name. You can also buy the other extension names for further protection.

5) If you already have brand recognition then use your name as the domain if possible. And you might buy a set of two domain names, one that includes your brand name and another that includes keywords. But be sure to have one as the primary to be submitted to search engines, and that the others are set up for forwarding only, not to be submitted to the search engines to avoid confusion.

These truths will get you maximal traffic from people and search engines - Uncle Arthur promises!

The Magic of the Name
Uncle Arthur “Merlin” Browning