How To Choose Domain For SEO Purposes?

When creating a website, the first choice you will have to make is to choose a domain name. No matter how many different experts claim that domain names don't help a site rank higher in search engines, the reality is that it works differently. 

For many years in a row, people who create sites or promote them are competing at auctions for domain names that contain keywords. And they do it to get a small advantage over their competitors at the start of their work. Because correctly picking up the domain name helps you better rank for a keyword that it contains. Let us take a closer look at all the subtleties of selecting a domain.

Taking into account relevance and keywords

Domain name is the address that the user enters in the address bar to find your site. When choosing a domain, you are unlikely to choose a meaningless set of letters and numbers that is very difficult to remember and does not carry any information to the visitor. Most likely, you will pick up a domain or push the name of your business or that it was a keyword that describes your site. For example, if you have a pizzeria, you would want the domain contains the word pizza, right? 

This is the coveted "keyword phrase occurrence" that so many SEO specialists are chasing at different auctions. All this is for a reason, these manipulations are necessary for the search engine to better understand what your site is about and what the main keyword is. Of course, this does not guarantee you a TOP-1 from the first day of work on the site, and most likely, this boost may seem insignificant, but it is not. All things being equal with the competition, it is this detail that can make you a winner in the race.

Availability and trademark verification

Previously, we told you about auctions and domain availability verification. Now it's time to talk about it in more detail. 

Let's go back to pizza again. I'm going to disappoint you, but chances are you won't be able to register a pizza domain name in any domain zone because it's already taken by someone else. 

Any domain name you want to register should first be checked to see if it's available since someone else might have beaten you to it and already taken it. If that happens you should check if the domain is not sold at auction, where you can redeem it. Different domains with different histories may cost quite different amounts of money, from $ 10 to tens of thousands of dollars.

Additionally, using Google search operators (for example, "site") in search engines can help quickly identify if a domain name or similar brands are already in use.

Check any domain for availability you can on one of the largest domain name registrars Godaddy.

Be concise and memorable

After learning that you can add keywords to the domain name, and it can help you in search engine optimization, do not immediately run to register a new domain with an entry of it all the keywords you need.

You are unlikely to help because everything should have a limit. And spam, especially in a domain name, is not worth it.

The most important thing for the domain is to make it memorable and brief. Because his main task is that people can quickly find you, even if at hand is not your business card or your site is not added to the bookmarks.

If you already have a popular brand and you want to create a website for it, you should just use the name of the brand in the domain. This will help your offline customers find you quickly and easily online.

Using the brand name in the domain will help you get to the top position for the branded query faster.

Choose the right domain extension

When choosing a domain, you should also choose not only the domain name itself but also the domain zone. The choice of the domain zone depends very many nuances that affect the promotion of the site. 

Domain zones are divided into 

• General domain zones are domains such as .com, .net, .org;
• National domain zones are countries: .de, .us, .co.uk, .pl;
• Regional domains or geographical top-level domains - these can be city domain zones, as .london and .berlin;
• Specialized domain zones - Domain zones which are used for specific topics such as .photo, .tickets.

For example, we can take the site wikipedia.org. This site has the domain zone "org". We all know Wikipedia, and we all know that it's a globally popular site.  And also we will take a site that also knows everything and has several domains for promotion under different geo zones. This is amazon.de. If we study this domain in more detail, we will see that there are amazon domains such as .com and many more geo-dependent domains.

Depending on the domain zone you choose, this is your way of telling the search engine and your users which country your business is in and where you want to promote yourself. If you choose a general zone, it means that you do not want to be associated with a particular geolocation.

What to consider when choosing a domain in terms of SEO

We have discussed with you many subtleties that should be considered when choosing a domain, from the name to the choice of domain zone. Let's try to systematize all this knowledge into one short list:

1. Choosing a domain name

Insert a keyword, a branded query or any other word. Your choice will depend on which key will have a higher priority and for which key (depending on the complexity) you can claim the first page from the start of the promotion. 

2. Choice of domain zone

This criterion affects what kind of site you create and whether you want to be associated with a particular geo. When selecting a domain zone you can choose a geo to the city, for example. kiyv.ua This means that you are planning to work in Ukraine in Kiev, if you provide repair services or have a small store or coffee shop, which will not go out of town, 

Then a great opportunity to highlight your location and get a small advantage over your competitors. 

3. Use domain name generators

If you can't think of anything when creating a domain, you can use domain name generators. You specify a keyword, and the service offers you domain name options.

4. Check availability and authorship

Not every domain you want is available. This domain may already be occupied by someone, or it may not be the site, but the domain name itself belongs to someone. In order to get a domain, most likely, you will need to negotiate with the owner to buy or take part in an auction. 

Also, when you register a new domain with the new brand you should study whether there are already registered online brands with exactly the same name, or you may have problems with the lawyers of the owners of this brand.

Conclusion:

Choosing a domain - this is a very important part of creating a site. It is correctly picked up the domain from the very beginning of the promotion of the site can increase your chances of getting to the top for certain queries. And picked up the domain zone immediately helps you to be in search of only the right country or even city for you. 

All this combined gives you a slight advantage over your less prepared competitors.