When you pick a domain name for your website make sure to avoid these traps.
Once you commit to a domain name, changing is a lot of hassle.
Learn what to avoid now before it is too late.
Trap 1) A “Short” Domain Name
The general rule of thumb is that the longer the name, the harder it is to remember. But you must measure length carefully. ThreeWordSite.com is a shorter site than vpci.net.
Why?
Because with ThreeWordSite.com you only need to remember three words whereas vpci.net forces you to remember four letters.
Trap 2) Alternative Domains
There are only two types of domains in this world, .com and everything else. Get a .com at all costs. The only time to get something other than a .com is if you simply cannot find what you are looking for. In that case only get a .org or .net. Anything other than those top three and you won’t be taken seriously (although this is changing somewhat). If you get a .org be prepared to loose traffic to the .com unless you buy them both.
Trap 3) Dashes
Avoid dashes at all costs. They-are-hard to remember and don’t add value to your domain. It is better to use CamelCase. CamelCase uses capital letters to distinguish the words instead of dashes. It is just as easy to read and much easier to remember. Dashes cause your website to fail the radio test.
Trap 4) Abbreviations
Abbreviations make your domain harder to remember. Especially if the domain is part abbreviation and part whole word. I worked for a non-profit called Stoneworks International. Was their website StoneworksInternational.com? No. It was StoneworksInt.com; a much harder to remember name. Now they have StoneworksInternational.com and StoneworksInternational.org. Abbreviations also cause your website to fail the radio test.
Trap 5) Phonetic Landmines
Some domains contain more than one word. For example www.therapistfinder.com could be read as TherapistFinder.com or TheRapistFinder.com. The capitals help make it clear but your domain will usually be shown in alllowercase. Read your domains carefully before you buy them.
I agree with most of your advice, except item 3, Avoiding Dashes.
I would add that whenever possible one should get BOTH the hyphenated (dashed) and unhyphenated versions of their chosen domain name….if you decide to use the UNhyphenated version as your primary domain, set up a 301 redirect on the other (hyphenated) version to your primary one…
This keeps others (okay, I’ll say it, “creeps”) from getting and abusing the version you failed to pick up – it does happen – so you’re protecting yourself and your brand for a few dollars a year.
It also makes it easier if you DO have your heart set on a domain that could be read more than one way (for example, my own domain could be read as TravelWritersExchange OR as TravelWriterSexChange…) because while you can use capital letters in many places, there will still be some confusion. In my particular case, it’s much easier to read travel-writers-exchange.com than to read travelwritersexchange.com……
Aside from this small, but respectful disagreement I find this to be a great post!