These days a domain name is online real estate. It’s where your brand lives and conducts business. It’s where you motivation potential customers to buy and it’s where you build your expertise and authority. So, it should come as no shock that picking a domain name is an important decision.
Choose incorrectly and you could be stuck with a bad name that will take time and effort to change.
Here, you’ll learn the answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about domain names. The answers should help guide you through making the right choice for your next domain name.
1. Am I Restricted To Buying The Same Domain Name As My Registered Business Name?
In short, no. Quick and easy, right? Not so fast, there are a few things to consider when picking your domain name when it comes to matching your registered business name. In an ideal world, you’d like your brands to be similar.
Even if they aren’t exactly the same name as your registered business, it still gives your customers a related name that is quite similar to search for online.
2. Which Domain Extension Is The Best One?
You can never go wrong with a .co.za domain extension. Wherever possible, try to get a domain name that both keeps your business brand consistent and also has a .co.za extension.
3. Does My Choice Of Domain Affect SEO?
In general, your choice of a domain name does matter for SEO, but probably not quite as much as you think. Brian Dean shared an in-depth post highlighting the 200+ factors Google takes into account for ranking.
You can see that having target keywords in your domain name matters, but not nearly as much as it used to. Now, having a high-quality site matters much more. Don’t worry too much about this, there are a number of ways to promote your site via SEO effectively if you don’t have a specific keyword as your business name or in the domain.
What you can consider, especially if you’re a local business, is putting your location in the domain name. Or, you could use your domain name to highlight your keyword (since it doesn’t have to be the same name as your registered business).
4. Should Hyphens And Numbers Be Used In Domain Names?
In the vast majority of cases, you want to avoid using hyphens and numbers in domain names. Remember, one of the biggest keys to success for your domain name is you want your customers to easily remember your business name, and be able to type it out quickly.
5. Copyright And Trademarks Issues With Domain Names
You always want to be 100% sure that you’re not registering a domain name that has already been trademarked by someone else.