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I am planning to open another blog in different niche. What is that niche? Of course cannot tell you! This is my secret at this moment. You will know when the time comes. To open a new blog, I would say preparation is the hardest time for me. Especially want to choose a good domain name is not an easy job nowadays. Most of the easy to remember and SEO friendly domain name has been registered to resell.

Yet, still we have methods to choose a good domain name for your website or blog. Before we go for methods that help you choose a good domain name, you must know the existing common domain name extensions:

.com (commercial business domain)
.net (commercial network)
.org (nonprofit organizations)
.edu (educational institution)
.gov (government agency)
.mil (military) .biz
.bz
.info
.tv
.name

First, choose the domain name extension that suits the best for your website or blog’s purpose. Normally, we choose from the first 3 extensions, .com, .net or .org. Of course other extension like .edu might suit for your education organization website or .tv suit for your video broadcast website. Other than the list above, there are more extensions like .cn, .cc and etc. As for normal usage, I would recommend the first 3 extensions.

7 Steps to choose a Good Domain Name

After choose your domain name extension, now its time to choose a good domain name. Did you know some search engines give your site better ranking if your domain name has some of the key words in it people are looking for? We will discuss further in this article.

1. Brainstorm 5 Most Relevant Keywords

Before start your domain name search, take out a paper and write down the 5 most relevant keywords that best describe your website or blog purpose. For example, if you want to start a make money online blog, the 5 most relevant keywords might be “make money online, earn money, internet money, work at home, online cash”. Play with those keywords until you found the best match.

2. Easy to Remember

Make your domain name easy to remember. Use words that easy to pronounce rather than bombastic words. If your domain name easy to remember, your readers will spread the word for you!

3. Keep it Short

Short domain name make readers easier to type and remember. Also better fit on business card or other media. For example, my domain name AhTim.com is so easy to remember compare to my full name.

4. Make it Unique Name (Branding)

Never use a domain name that similar to others popular website. Make your domain name unique for your own branding. Use domain name that closed to popular website might get your readers go to the wrong domain.

5. Don’t use Hyphens and Numbers

Hyphens and numbers can confuse your readers easily when you tell others. Although there is not much difference on SEO, but not good for human readability. For example, the number “0″ might look same with the character “O”. This misleading characters might cause you lost some readers.

6. Avoid Odd Character and Spelling

You are advise not to use odd character and spelling such as “q,” “z,” “x,” “c,” and “p” at your domain name’s tail. Most of the time, our desire domain name has been taken by someone, then we just add some odd character at behind in order to get that similar domain name. But this is not a good practice. It not only make people hard to remember your domain name, but also lost your branding value!

7. Meaningful Domain Name

Readers should be able to recognize the type of your content by looking at your domain name. For example, Hotmail.com best describe its purpose by its name. On the other hand, if it named as Hotml.com there is not much meaning.

Prepare the 10 best domain name and search for the availability. Register your domain name with AhTim at cheap price start from $10!

[Tips: SEOMoz]

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Tags: domain name, domain name search, relevant keywords