Domain Name Options – Relevant Domain Names vs Brandable Domain Names

When deciding on a domain name for a website you will often be challenged with a limited supply of relevant names due to the fact that there is a huge domain name market out there. Sometimes you might have to choose and alternative to your ideal domain name.

Let’s use an example, and I’m writing this without looking ANY of names up in advance – You are in the business of selling ’stereo speakers’ or wanting to do a website to review all brands and makes of ’stereo speakers’. Without much doubt, the two most ideal names in existance would be:

• speakers.com
• stereospeakers.com

Now without even looking those names up, I guarantee they are already registered, they might not be in use and might possibly be for sale, but you will definatly pay a hefty price to obtain them. You do however have other options …

Triple Word Names: A lot more specific and probably all taken:

• StereoSpeakerReviews.com or StereoSpeakerReview.com
• StereoSpeakerShop.com or StereoSpeakerStore.com

Other TLDs

• Speakers.net, Speakers.org, Speakers.info, Speakers.us, Speakers.biz etc…. probably all taken for a popular one-word term like ’speakers’
• StereoSpeakers.org, StereoSpeakers.info, StereoSpeakers.us – you might get lucky and find one of these two-word combinations available in an alternate TLD.

Use Dashes

• Stereo-Speakers.com or Speaker-Reviews.com – would be a good alternate choice, not quite as brandable as the names without dashes, but should get good search engine rankings because of the domain keyword relevancy.

Throw in a good suffix or prefix – while these are usually taken you might get lucky to find one that is available.

• SpeakerCentral.com, SpeakerSystems.com, SpeakerPlace.com, SpeakerPedia.com, SpeakerSpot.com – the term speaker does have multiple meanings and that makes it even more likely that these domains have been reigstered.
• TheStereoSpeakers.com, TheSpeakers.com, ASpeakerReview.com, AboutSpeakers.com – Again many of these will be taken for a highly competitive word like ‘Speakers’ but in your industry it’s worth a look to see if these domains are available.

Use a combination of the above

• Speaker-Reviews.cc or Stereo-Speakers.info – There’s a good chance that one of these might be available for registration.
• StereoSpeakerSpot.com or StereoSpeakerHub.com, StereoSpeakerCentral.info – While I can tell you that the most common suffix have been taken like StereoSpeakerStore.com or StereoSpeakerShop.com you might find some available for registration.

And a completly different option would be to use a brandable term that might not get any direct search. For example, with speakers I might use the term: boombooms.com or speakerphile.com or speakerz.com.

It’s really difficult when you have limited options available and you have to decide between less popular domain extentions (TLDs), a name that means nothing to your product or website but hope to brand, and domains that are really long (e.g. TheAmazingSpeakerReviewSite.com).

Another thing to think about is the impact of your domain on both search engine marketing and search engine optimization. While, a dash or alternate TLD might not have any impact on your paid search placements, it could have an impact on your natural search engine rankings. It is one question that many marketing executives and Internet marketers have pondered for over a decade,  but that final answer to that issues remains in the hands of the search engines and it’s not something that are willing to share.

Tags: branding, doman names, naming, picking a domain name, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, sem, seo, tld