In order to achieve a good ranking in search engines, your website address or domain name should be chosen carefully. Before using any SEO strategies, you should start with your website address. Here are some valuable tips on how to choose an effective domain name:

• If you can, you should try to get a domain name that ends with .com. Although, if the one you really like is already taken, you can use .org or .net domain name extensions. The .com, .org, and .net are the recommended ones to use if you want to target the online users in the U.S.
• Do not use hyphens in your domain name. If your desired name is already taken, do not create a version of it with hyphens. For example, you want the website www.newyorkpizza.com but it’s already taken. Do not register www.new-york-pizza.com or www.newyork-pizza.com. Usually, domains with hyphens will make your business look a bit inexperienced or copycats. Also, it will have a low ranking grade in search engines. You can try to add other words to differentiate your brand like www.greatnewyorkpizza.com or www.newyorkpizzaonline.com. But if you really want to use hyphens, do
• Try to keep your domain name short and easy to remember. Do not exceed 3 to 4 words. For example, you have an events planning company named “Wedding and Party Planning by Jane Smith”. You shouldn’t use www.weddingandpartyplanningbyjanesmith.com. That would be too long and hard to remember by your clients. You can use www.janesmithevents.com or www.eventsbyjanesmith.com.
• If your company is a franchise of a big brand or company, do not include their company name in your domain. That would be illegal and definitely would have implications afterwards. Before buying your domain name, you should ask permission from the mother company so you can use it legally.
• It is also recommended to use your keywords in your domain name for maximum SEO. For example, you own a car dealership named Westside Quality Auto Dealer and your keywords are “car dealers in Los Angeles”. It would be a good idea to register both www.westsideautodealer.com and www.losangelescardealer.com. With that, you can have several website rankings from one keywords used by the two websites. You could dominate Google’s search if you can register all your main keywords as domains – a great SEO method!

Do you want more help in creating the best website possible for your local business? Let us guide you so you can save time and effort and get the success ball rolling!