If you are starting out with your first website, want to know what to register because you just signed up with x2cms and got a free domain name or just want to register a lot of domains in the hope one of them MIGHT become valuable... then read on!

Part 1 – Length

OK, so you want to put a site online. Whether it’s a site solely for you and your friends, your local version of the Britney fan site or a plan for a multi-million dollar rival to amazon.com the principles are the same - keep it short and keep it simple.

KEEP IT SIMPLE. The simpler the better. Let’s take a really easy example, which is better –

a. www.amazon.com
b. www.everybookunderthesunonlineatgreatprices.com

If you answered b, please start at the beginning of the article! Length is vital to your success; if you want your visitors to type in huge long URL’s then you might find yourself in trouble. To test it, think of the longest URL you actually visit and type it in to Word as quickly as you can 20 times. How many times did you spell it wrongly? I rest my case.

Part 2 – Relevance

In the above example, two parts of example b really stand out – it accurately describes what the site is about and it also contains a lot of the keywords that possible visitors use to search for books for sale on the internet. Both of these are good things to do, so how come Amazon didn’t simply go for another URL like www.booksforsale.com or www.booksonline.com ? The answer is branding. (It’s also possible that booksonline might have beaten them to it, but I don’t think so). If someone says amazon.com to you now, you immediately know its Books, CD’s, software… probably in that order.

Search Engines work in mysterious ways (see the search engine article for more bizarre details) but these days having your keywords in your URL isn’t necessarily the best thing to do. If you can find a decent URL that people might type in automatically without even loading a search engine like Google, then great. If it conforms to all the other general themes on this page then perfect!

Amazon obviously put a lot of time in to branding and marketing their site – not to mention a few truck loads of cash. You might not have that opportunity but what you DO have is reciprocal links and something called anchor text. Take these two links as an example -

a. www.x2cms.com
b. x2cms Website Builder

Both are good links to have on other sites (again see the search engine article) but in this case I know that Website Builder are the main keywords used for searching the net for the service that x2cms provides. Try searching Google for the term website builder, open a few of the sites and you will notice that on some of the top ranking sites the words “website builder” does not even appear in the text! “Oh wait” you say, “It’s in the meta tags!” Nope. Think again, meta tags are virtually redundant these days. Anchor text is where it’s at.

Part 3 – Is it memorable?

Could you remember the long url of the book shop example now without looking up at the top of this article again? Thought not. Keep it short and memorable, logical to your site subject where possible, or not at all if you want to go the branding route. Without wishing to go on and on about Amazon.com, it’s a useful example yet again. Say the word Amazon.com and most people think of dense jungle – and it helps to remember the website.

If I visited your site today, and met a friend I desperately wanted to tell of your site tomorrow could I remember your URL? I would want to, and so would you.

Part 4 – Can you pronounce it?

Huh? Who cares how you pronounce it? Well, your customers will. So will you if you ever want to tell someone it over the phone, in person, on a radio advert – you get the idea. Keep it as simple as possible and you will not go far wrong.

Put it all Together

Once you take these steps in to account, you might choose to forsake some of the 4 items, but try and keep as many as you can. I’ve listed them in a rough order of importance, so if you need to drop one then go for number 4 (after all, x2cms did, and think of how many times I’ve had to spell that on the phone or for someone to write down!).

Incidentally, if you want to know where x2cms came from it’s a very long story. CMS however stands for Content Management System (which is of course part of what we do).

www.x2cms.com is short. It’s relevant with the CMS part and you will routinely find links around the internet going to x2cms Website Builder. It is reasonably memorable, mainly because it is short and it starts with x – not many things start with x ;)

Before you embark on naming your site and registering your URL, have a quick look through the Search Engine article as well, there are some good tips in there both for making sure you get the right name and then promote it the best way possible.

Whatever you choose to name your domain, there are exceptions to every rule. If you have something that you know is right, doesn’t meet any of my basic criteria listed above then stick with it, maybe next time I write this article I will be using your domain as an example. ;)

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