So you have decided the time has come for your business to have an internet prescence. Lets face it, its about time isn't it? Where have you been? The internet is here to stay and having a website to promote your services and products can have a dramatic and extremely positive effect on sales and turnover. There have been thousands if not hundreds of thousands of stories of people who make their livings purely off just one website. They have been able to give up their day job and are now able to enjoy the benefits that working from home can bring. The decision has been made, you may have even found a company to design and host your new site, all you need to think about now is what domain name to purchase.

Some people suggest that your domain name should basically include your keywords. These are the words that people are likely to search for when looking for the type of services that you offer. Other people would advise that you should choose some form of bubbly name and to try to attract people to the brand. So which of these pieces of advice should you go for?

The answer to this question could be determined by which of the major search engines you are going to attempt to dominate in. For my own sites I want to do well in all of the search engines and would certainly go for a domain name which includes my main keyword. For example if I was offering a web design service I would attempt to buy webdesign.com. This domain of course is likely to have been taken years ago and therefore I would then attempt to find a name as close to this such as affordablewebdesign.com.

I have purchased a large number of domains in my time and it can sometimes take over an hour to find a suitable domain which has not already been taken. My advice is not to rush this task as it is very important, you should be looking to keep this domain for years to come. The older the domain the more respect and authority that the search engines will give to the site.

Stephen Hill helps to promote a number of websites including:

stuttering

stutter

std advice