Advice on a domain name please

Invicta

I am self employed and have found a free web site called Wix where I have designed a couple of simple web pages to show examples of my work, my range of skills and provide a means by which people can contact me.

I gather I now need a Domain name so that when people type in a generic search e.g. "Gloucestershire Plumber" into engines such as Google there is a chance that my details will be displayed.
I've looked at UKreg as a means of selecting/getting a Domain but I'm not sure what I should consider as the most effective name.

I have also come across WHOIS to see what names are available.

Has anyone any advice on how best I should approach project this please?

Your help will be very much appreciated,
Bernard

Longships

Is Wix a UK company? If not you would probably be better off building your own site on your own domain. As for finding a suitable domain name - if you google "google keyword tool" you can find out how many people per month are searching for your desired keywords and then try and get the .co.uk for the highest searched term.

S0litaire

Google rankings is a dark art of mystery and voodoo!! lol

Best thing you can do is make sure you get a domain you like.
Then check out google.com/AdWords (your ads on google) and google.com/AdSense (other peoples ads for your web pages)
Once you've got a few targeted ads in your area of business and location out there you're listing in google search will rise.

more info from google here:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=34432&topic=8524

googler

Your domain name should, generally, reflect the name of your business.

That's not necessarily the same as the keywords you want to be ranked for.

For instance; hmv.com would want to be ranked highly when people search for CDs, books and other products.

next.com would want to figure well in searches for 'fashion' 'clothing' 'catalogue sales' and the like.

There's exceptions to every rule - diy.com as B&Q website, for instance, has the business focus rather than the name.....

TimBear

One thing to consider too if purchasing different suffixes so that people aren't misdirected to another website instead of yours because they've typed in, say, .com instead of .co.uk.

hoyteam

The best online brands just ahve a catchy name rather than one full of key words.

Invicta

Superb!
Just the sort of guidance I was seeking.
Thanks are on the way to all

Bernard

Lil306

Longships wrote: »

Is Wix a UK company? If not you would probably be better off building your own site on your own domain. As for finding a suitable domain name - if you google "google keyword tool" you can find out how many people per month are searching for your desired keywords and then try and get the .co.uk for the highest searched term.

I thanked you simply because I never even knew of that thing, quite useful, saved to favs

tafelmoneysaver

1) make it short (make sure it fits on the side of the van!)
2) make it easy to spell
3) make it easy to remember
4) avoid hyphens, punctuation and numbers
5) get both the .com and .co.uk

silaren

https://www.gloucestershireplumber.co.uk and the .net version are already taken but the following are available:

https://www.gloucestershireplumber.me.uk
https://www.gloucestershireplumber.org.uk
https://www.gloucestershireplumber.com
https://www.gloucestershireplumber.co
https://www.gloucestershireplumber.net
https://www.gloucestershireplumber.eu
https://www.gloucestershireplumber.org
https://www.gloucestershireplumber.info
https://www.gloucestershireplumber.biz

However, I'd be wary of picking something that's too similar to a competitor. That's why I suggest going with the name of your business and ideally what you do. Anything else will make people confused about which site they've landed on - it's easy to lose credibility on the web. Getting people through the front door is only the first step - if the house is a mess or they thought they'd walked into a bank but it turned into a dry cleaners, then they're not going to stay very long.

Once you have your domain name, make sure that you write some decent copy about your business so that you can pick up on the keywords.

And second the advice about having your own webspace. Adds to the credibility. Also, when you have your domain name, create an email address using that domain name, this will be your main email address for your business. Please don't use a freebie email address like Hotmail or Gmail.

Here's some more basic advice about websites from Business Link:

http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?itemId=1073788947&type=RESOURCES

Lil306

silaren wrote: »

www.gloucestershireplumber.co.uk and the .net version are already taken but the following are available:

www.gloucestershireplumber.me.uk
www.gloucestershireplumber.org.uk
www.gloucestershireplumber.com
www.gloucestershireplumber.co
www.gloucestershireplumber.net
www.gloucestershireplumber.eu
www.gloucestershireplumber.org
www.gloucestershireplumber.info
www.gloucestershireplumber.biz

However, I'd be wary of picking something that's too similar to a competitor. That's why I suggest going with the name of your business and ideally what you do. Anything else will make people confused about which site they've landed on - it's easy to lose credibility on the web. Getting people through the front door is only the first step - if the house is a mess or they thought they'd walked into a bank but it turned into a dry cleaners, then they're not going to stay very long.

Once you have your domain name, make sure that you write some decent copy about your business so that you can pick up on the keywords.

And second the advice about having your own webspace. Adds to the credibility. Also, when you have your domain name, create an email address using that domain name, this will be your main email address for your business. Please don't use a freebie email address like Hotmail or Gmail.

Here's some more basic advice about websites from Business Link:

http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?itemId=1073788947&type=RESOURCES

What about a shorter version like glosplumber?

Mainly because if people are like me they mess up the spellings on places ending in 'shire