When buying your domain name(s), here’s a few tips to help you navigate all those options.

1. Buy two years or more for your primary domain. Search engines might regard one-year registrations as “fly-by-night” sites.
2. Consider buying a few similar domains, but don’t overdo it. (See related post for which domains to get.)
3. Select “private registration” to spare yourself a ton of spam.
4. Don’t buy any extras (e.g., hosting, website builder) unless you have discussed it with your web designer.

I’ll be happy to help you with any aspect of domain registration or any website-related  needs. Contact me.

Are you wondering if you should have more than one domain name for one site? The answer is: only if you know what you’re doing.

You  may have noticed that when you go to register a domain name, they try to push you to buy more domains, primarily variations on your first pick (e.g., yourname.biz, your-name.com). Of course they want to make more money, but a few extra domains might be worth it.

Why and Why Not

The only benefits to buying multiple domains for one site are to make it easier for people to find you even if they mistyped, and to keep other people from buying those other domain names. You put too much into your reputation and your marketing dollars to have a potential visitor end up at the wrong site.

Not everyone needs multiple domains, but if your website is related to your income, it’s worth the very small investment for a little “insurance.” The more you have invested, the more insurance you’ll want. Nike, for instance, should probably own every variation of Nike and JustDoIt.

If you’re thinking that having multiple domain names will help you in search engines for those various words, don’t do it! That approach will not work and it might backfire. See the big warning below.

Which Extras Should You Get?

1. For most people, you should own .com, .net., and .org for your name. The rest of the suffixes aren’t worth it. Warning: if your favorite domain is not available at .com, I would choose a different domain. People tend to type in .com even if you told them .net, so make sure they still find you.
2. You also might want to grab any names that might be mistaken for your business name. For instance, if you’re more known by a nickname, register the nickname and the formal name.
3. If your products have their own well-known brand names (e.g., Tylenol), be sure to buy those domain names too.

Big Warning – What NOT To Do

Don’t treat all your domains equally. Choose only one primary domain per website. All the others you bought should be permanently redirected (called “301″ redirection) to your primary domain. Your domain registrar (or I) can help you with this. This is very important for two reasons:

1. Search engines will not like your site if they see you having one website with more than one domain name. They might even drop you from their search results. Search engines are happy with 301 redirects. They will ignore any domains that are redirected and give all their attention to your primary domain; this is why having extra domains for extra keywords doesn’t work.
2. If you promote different website addresses to your target audience, you will send a confusing message to your audience and you’ll miss out on the benefits of repetition.

I’ll be happy to help you choose the best set of domains for your purposes and make sure they are set up correctly. Contact me.

Yes it’s important to have your own unique domain name if you have a blog or website! Don’t use any service that doesn’t let you set up and use your own domain name. You’ll be hard pressed to get serious traffic from search engines without your own domain name.

For clarity, a domain name is the part of a website address that uses this format: domainname.com

For example, if you have a blog at WordPress.com and you use the default website address, such as yourname.wordpress.com, the domain name in that case is wordpress.com. If that’s the case for you, I recommend you register your own domain name and map it to your site using the simple instructions that your host (e.g., WordPress) will provide. The fees involved are very small and definitely worth it.

Be sure to register your domain yourself, rather than going through WordPress or any other web host to do so. That way, it’s always yours even if you switch to a different web host. And it’s easy. If you feel stuck along the way, call your domain registrar (and make sure the one you choose has phone support), and ask them to walk you through it.

And if this all sounds Greek to you, contact me for help. I can help you choose the best domain name, register it (in your name), and set it up.

Are you wondering if choosing the right domain name makes a big difference? And should you register more than one domain? Those are more complicated questions – for another day, or feel free to ask me.