Choose a Domain Name

Before you can build a website, you must have a domain name.

There are 3 primary approaches to choosing a domain name:

1. a very detailed, specific domain name that explains explicitly what you are teaching, for example infobusinessuniversity.com or survivallife.com
2. a shorter, catchier, snappier, and memorable domain name that is on-topic but may not carry as much information
3. a non-sense or out-of-language domain name like amazon, google, or udemy

So when would you use one or another?

This goes back to your purpose . . . and on the web, as in life, it rarely is possible to “be all things to all people”

With a detailed, specific domain name that explains explicitly what you are teaching, you can become known for having a detailed, comprehensive site on your topic . . . but it’s very hard for a site like that to “go viral” or be shared easily. In order for things to go viral, they tend to need to be easily conveyed as a meme . . .for example, we say we are going to “google” something, not ” go to the web, type in a search term, and get results”

The more tightly you can make your domain name, the catchier, snappier, shorter and memorable the domain name, the easier it is for people (humans) to share, and the more easy it is to share, the easier it is to get it to go viral.

And then there is nonsense  or out of language choices. Now, a place for these might be when you are in a topic where every possible domain name is taken, so you resort to a nonsense word. Or you might just like the sound of a nonsense word. Or you may have personal meaning in what to others is a nonsense word, but it is not to you.

Now, the catch with a nonsense or out-of-language domain name is that you will have to educate your visitors and imprint that your domain name equates with your topic – so you must be laser focused on your website on one big topic, rather than trying to be “all things to all people”

Here are some ideas to help you choose a domain name (taken from real-life coaching real clients):

1. In order for something to go big and viral  – it has to be simplelike google, yahoo, udemy, apple –

   short and simple

   so the others are in my opinion too long

   it needs to be short and snappy

   something you can love

   and something others can desire to share

   Sean

   2) Understand that this is a creative process, can take some time –

   do this: go to amazon and do book searches around your topic.

   have a sheet of paper handy

   read through the titles of the top 50 books for each search and each time a title pops out at you, write it down until you have 50 titles

   then read through the list and see if you can find 10 words that jump out

   then think about how you can use those words . . maybe adding a suffice or prefix to one of those words –

   like

   (yourtopic)way
   (yourtopic)power
   (yourtopic)time
   (yourtopic)happy
   (yourtopic)theme
   (yourtopic)best
   (yourtopic)now

   and so on

   and just write and write and write

   sometimes I write 100 names when I am doing this kind of work, and I’ve done it 10x or more

   you might have to write 1000!!!!

   By the way, I personally like namecheap.com for domain names. I don’t like buying a domain name from a hosting company, because if you ever want to switch hosts, you can be tied to that host until they move your domain name . . . and they might take 2 months to do that!

   But if your domain name is at a domain name seller instead of a web host (like namecheap) then your domain name can point to a different web host in a matter of minutes if something happens to your web hosting service (and experienced marketers have probably nearly all experienced a problem with a web host!)

Finally, choose and solidify your domain name choice before you move forward. You can’t build your site until you have a domain name for it!