Wealth Winners

With the .com extension being used more and more, one might think that all the good domain names are gone. That just isn't the case. There are still a lot of really good domain names available IF you put your creativity to use.

Having a good domain name is important, but perhaps not for the reasons that you might think.

Previously, we were led to believe that you HAD to have the name of your company or product in the domain name for it to be successful in the organic searches.

However, I have since learned that having a domain name that had no indication of the company I was promoting did not keep me from ranking quite high for the search terms I was using.

Still, coming up with a great unique domain name can be challenging. Here are some tips and recommendations, as well as videos showing some of the tools that I use.

1. Try to get a .com, instead of .net or .org or any other extension. Why? Because when you give someone your domain name, even if you tell them the other extension, the majority will still type in .com because of habit. This could potentially lead your prospect to a page of a competitor. So my rule of thumb is to only purchase .com's. If I cannot find the specific .com, then I find another name that has the .com extension.

2. Remember, this is personal branding. Since personal branding goes hand in hand with online social networking, you want to make sure that your brand name is available on the social network sites as well. Do a Google search for the name you are considering in quotes to see if there are other people already using it.

3. Use synonyms for words that are not available. For example, if you want the word "mentor" as part of your domain name with another keyword, but it isn't available, then try the word "coach" or "tutor". You can find synonyms easily by going to www.thesaurus.com and typing in the keyword to find the similar words.

4. Make sure your domain name choice is easy to say. It may become tedious to have to slowly spell out the domain name every time you say it.

Here are some sites that will help you with generating ideas, domains, alternative keywords, etc.

GoDaddy - Use the Smart Search for options other than the name you are trying to obtain. www.GoDaddy.com


Rhymezone - great tool for finding rhyming words for your keyword.
http://www.rhymezone.com/

Domain Exposer - Highly recommended for finding other options for your keyword plus additional words that can be used with your keywords.
http://www.domainexposer.com/

Urban Dictionary - While this can be less than G rated, it may help to give you ideas in areas that you may not have considered.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/ (caution - this site can be R rated at times)

Thesaurus - Great for finding synonyms for keywords that may not be available in a domain name. Try the Visual Thesaurus for even more ideas.