Or, more like “Naming Your Child”…

This is where your “smart planning” kicks in. Many folks get enamored with the name they’ve chosen for their new company. They’re even more excited when they find out that they can license raffertysproducts.com. But here’s the rub…the reason this URL is available is because no one would likely use it. Think a little bit about what you sell and how search engines work.

Remember…search engines, the lifeblood of any Internet retailer are based on words.

Also the name of your web site is one weighted portion of how you score in the search engines. The name of your web site isn’t the only way search engines find you, but in the game of search engine optimization, it helps, so why not plan a little further?

If raffertysproducts is only going to sell lemon bars, you might want to consider checking for ‘lemonbars.com’ or ‘raffertyslemonbars.com’. Or…if you are starting with lemon bars but hope to eventually move into all lemon-based products…you might want to consider raffertyslemonproducts.com, lemontree.com or something of that ilk. In this new world, you’re always asking yourself:

What would a customer type into a search engine who might be interested in my product?

Once you have a handle on a couple of possible names, you’ll want to pay a little visit to a registrar. You can do so by clicking on the link below to see the various choices of registrars on the planet. These folks will charge you a yearly license fee to use the name…they also always have a search so you can see what names are available to you and which are not.

One other quick thought…most of these sites charge you a low introductory price…but also have 3, 5, 10 year plans. Think like a businessman…choose a 1 year plan and invest as little as possible in this…you may need funds for more important elements of your web site…and a year is a good testing ground to see if things are going to work out.

Click Here For the Most Popular Registrars!

Most web developers prefer a “.com” extension rather than the .net, .biz and other choices available.

You can find studies that argue both sides of this, but there is one undeniable fact…folks are used to .com as the defacto standard…they might even type it into an address bar without thinking. So with that in mind, start by looking for a .com URL.