First up? This bad boy needs a domain name.

In my 10+ years of playing with the internet for a living, the naming process always proves to be one of the key parts of the eventual success of every one of my sites.

That’s not at all to say that these sites would have been doomed to fail if I ended up with a less than perfect domain name.

It’s just to say that, if you do end up with the perfect domain name, the odds of your site being a success increase big time and the work required to make it happen becomes a little easier.

And yeah, I have the first hand experience to back that up.

For this reason, the naming process for me always begins with one very specific goal in mind: to get this shit as perfect as possible.

How? Like this…

The 10 Characteristics of a Perfect Domain Name

Whenever I need to register a domain name, there are about 10 very specific characteristics that I either aim for or avoid to ensure that I end up with THE perfect domain name. In no special order, here are those 10 characteristics:

1. It should be identical to the name of the site.

If you want to name your site Super Cool Site, then you need to register SuperCoolSite.com. If it’s unavailable, fuck it… time to come up with a new name. Simple as that.

Having a domain name that is one thing and a site named something else will just confuse the crap out of people no matter how ALMOST identical they are.

In my opinion, domain name availability should most definitely dictate the naming of your site. It always has (and always will) for me, and it certainly should for you, too.

2. It should end in .com.

In my opinion, if the .com version of your ideal domain name is unavailable, fuck it… time to come up with something else. Simple as that.

The only time I have ever registered a domain name that ended with something besides .com is when I already registered the .com version first and then went and got the .net/.org to prevent other people from getting it.

The reason why is simple… people think domain names and they automatically think .com. Therefore anything that isn’t .com is automatically not perfect and a potential cause for confusion/problems.

End of the world? No. Just far from perfect, and I’m aiming for absolutely perfect. You should too.

And for everyone thinking “well what about sites like problogger.net and seomoz.org and the many other very successful sites that end in something besides .com?” Here’s what…

Send that site owner an email and ask them what they would do if they found a time machine.

I got 20 bucks that says their answer will be to go back and start off on the .com version of their domain name.

And not to mention, 9 times out of 10 that site owner has since gone on to do whatever the hell they needed to do to get the .com version of their domain name. Why? Because they have come to find that having a domain name that ends in something besides .com is a pain in the ass.

So, save yourself the headache and go .com only.

Oh, and if you’re even considering .info or .biz, please kindly leave this blog and never come back. Thank you.

3. It should not contain hyphens or numbers.

Speaking of pains in the ass, hyphens fit that description for various reasons. First, no one ever remembers they are there (this includes both visitors AND the people who want to tell others about your site). Second, it takes about 10 tries before you can verbally say your domain name to someone and have them actually understand it.

Bare in mind, this is coming from a guy who actually has a site with a hyphen in its domain name, and that site averages about 20,000 unique visitors per day.

Obviously I overcame the disadvantages of the hyphen, but it was and still sometimes is a big pain in the ass (enough so that I’d never do it again).

Well, except once… in the case of an exact keyword match (like weight-loss.com or internet-marketing.com or firstname-lastname.com). This is the 1 true exception to the no-hyphen rule, and even then I’d give it some thought.

Numbers in domain names are bad for similar reasons. Is it the number 4 or the word four? The number 50 or the word fifty? Is it to, too, two or 2?

Anything that’s even remotely confusing should be avoided, and numbers and hyphens fall into that category.

4. It should be easy to spell.

People are idiots and very few of them can spell. Keep this in mind when registering your domain name. If it contains something people may have a hard time spelling, don’t use it

Why? For starters, some people will never get to your site. They’ll just misspell something and end up somewhere else, or maybe figure your site just disappeared. Some may realize they’re spelling something wrong and figure it out and fix it. Most won’t bother.

And, people will just as easily misspell your domain name when trying to link to you. Happens all the time. People end up linking to nothing or just some other site altogether and you miss out on both traffic and what the SEO nerds call link juice.

This is another argument for avoiding hyphens, numbers and anything else that has any chance of causing any confusion.

5. It should be as short as possible.

How short? No idea. I have no specific number of letters that I aim for. I just try to keep it as short as possible.

The longer a domain name is the harder it will be to remember or type without mistakes/typos. The shorter it is the easier it will be to read in a link, a tweet, a search engine results page, etc..

And keep in mind that the domain name isn’t the URL of every page of your site. 99% of it will be www.domainname.com/content-of-some-kind. The shorter the “domainname.com” part is, the more visible the “content-of-some-kind” part is.

6. It should be descriptive and accurate to some degree.

No, the domain name of your car blog doesn’t need to be ThisIsAReallyCoolBlogAboutNewCarsAndOldCarsAndTheresAForumToo.com.

It just needs to give people some idea of what the site is before they actually see what it is. Is it something they might like, want, need or be interested in? The domain name should at least partially give them an answer.

Similarly, your domain name shouldn’t make your site seem like it’s going to be something it isn’t.

7. It shouldn’t sound like or resemble something you don’t own.

Oh the horror stories you will hear from people who registered a domain name with someone else’s trademarked name in it. They create this great site with great content and great search engine rankings and great traffic and great earnings.

And then, one day out of the blue the company whose name is being used in your domain name finally notices you and calls their lawyers.

What happens next? You’re fucked, that’s what. They always win this battle, and you will always have to get a new domain name for your site.

How fun does that sound? Reaching the point of having a successful site and then being forced to change its domain name? I’m not quite dumb enough to have experienced this myself, but from what I hear, “the complete opposite of fun” is a pretty accurate description.

8. It shouldn’t be tainted.

Millions of domain names are already taken. And, millions of the ones that aren’t were taken at one time. If your perfect domain name turns out to be one of the ones that were taken at one time, you’re job is to find out what the hell it used to be and what kind of reputation is associated with it.

Basically, your job is to find out if it’s tainted. If it turns out it is… fuck it. Find something else.

Tainted how, you wonder? It could have been porn, could be banned from Google, could be blacklisted, all sorts of stuff. Granted, there are ways to fix this… but why start off with the unnecessary headache of having to fix the problems someone else caused?

As for how to find out if your domain name is or is not tainted, the first place to start is the Wayback Machine. Enter your URL and see what (if anything) it used to be. Beyond that, just searching for it in Google will turn up all kinds of stuff (assuming there is anything to turn up in the first place).

9. It should be brandable, memorable, unique and awesome.

Reading through this list may make you temporarily forget one other teeny-tiny thing you want in a domain name.

It should be great.

You know, something that you can build an audience around. Something that people will remember. Something that expresses an identity. Something that is just flat out great.

Obvious? Maybe, but still a huge part of what makes a perfect domain name perfect in the first place.

10. It should contain your site’s #1 goal keyword/keyphrase.

Here’s the thing. The majority of the links to your site will use your site’s name/domain name in the anchor text whether you like it or not.

And, if you read the SEO Flowchart To Awesome Search Engine Rankings, you know that the biggest SEO key of all is really just getting a shit load of high quality links and having your goal keyword(s) in the anchor text of those links.

So then, if most of your site’s backlinks are going to use your site’s name/domain name in the anchor text, and your site’s name/domain name happens to contain your goal keyword… do you know what’s going to happen if you end up getting lots of high quality links?

SEO magic, that’s what.

But wait… stop.

This doesn’t mean you should register weightlosspillsmortgagesfreeporn.com or anything equally dumb. It just means that before you begin this whole domain name process, you should have a really good idea of what your site’s main goal keywords are.

Then, you should aim to get the prettiest one of them all into your domain name.

BUT, it must only be done in a way that makes sense and doesn’t interfere at all with the other 9 items on this list.

Got that? Good.

Wanna hear a secret? I rank amazingly for some of the most competitive keywords in existence. Some are just really competitive, but others are on a whole other level. You know, the kind of stuff most smart SEOs will tell you never to bother even trying to rank well for.

I have these rankings for 3 reasons. First, I created amazing content and provided crazy amounts of value. Second, I marketed the crap out of it and got a ton of super high quality links. Third, my domain name contains my site’s #1 goal keyword therefore causing most of these links to use this keyword in the anchor text.

The result is that I ended up ranking very well for these very competitive, highly sought after keywords. Here’s an example…

You know that site I talk about in the How to Increase Traffic to a New Site or Blog case study? Well, that site’s domain name happens to contain its goal keyword. Not a keyword it would be nice to rank well for, but the super duper bestest keyword of them all.

And, because of how well that launch went and how well marketed that site was and how many amazing links it ended up getting and the fact that many of those links ended up using my #1 goal keyword in the anchor text, I ended up ranking very well for that keyword.

Now, if you keep everything in that scenario the same but remove that keyword from my domain name, sure… that site would still be a huge success and have a ton of amazing rankings. No argument there.

But, would I rank as well or even at all for that specific #1 goal keyword of mine? No, I wouldn’t. It was having it in my domain name that played a huge part in making that happen.

My Results

The domain name for my new site has now been registered, and it’s perfect. On a scale of 1-10, it’s a 10. It really couldn’t be any better. It’s absolutely perfect.

Specifically, it…

• is the same name as the site.
• ends with .com.
• does not contain hyphens or numbers.
• is easy to spell.
• is short enough.
• is extremely descriptive and accurate.
• doesn’t screw with any trademarks/copyrights.
• has been registered before, but is not tainted at all.
• is as brandable and memorable as can be.
• contains my #1 goal keyword.

It’s the perfect domain name.

Question & Answer

What registrar did you use? GoDaddy.com

Where did you look up domain names throughout this process? AJAXWhois

How do you know what your site’s goal keyword is? A combination of researching my niche/audience/competitors, the AdWords Keyword Tool, and experience.

Did you do a private or public domain registration? Public. Any site that I am really truly serious about is ALWAYS a public registration. I only use private registrations for little side projects I don’t really care about and this one blog where I may occasionally discuss how much money I make and therefore don’t exactly want my name and address easily visible (that’d be this blog in case it’s not obvious enough).

What if I don’t have/didn’t end up with the perfect domain name? Great content + great marketing can overcome anything, even a not-so-good domain name. Get it perfect though and good things will happen because of it.

What’s next?

Finding the perfect web host. This will be easy because I kind of already found it 5 years ago.

You’ll see.