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Choosing a domain name gets harder as time goes on and sometimes it seems like all the perfect domain names have gone long ago.

Although you’ll almost certainly find that your first few choices have already been registered, don’t give up as there are a great deal of great names still out there and perhaps a variation of your “perfect” name is still available. For example, say you are doing self-catering in Normandy… selfcateringnormandy.com is already gone but, as I write this, both selfcateringnormandy.net and selfcateringnormandy.org are still available as are selfcateringnormandyonline.com and selfcateringnormandytoday.com.

I used the keyword packed approach to selecting a domain name in my example above but the other common approach to selecting a domain is to use the name of your place. Which is better? In principle, the keyword approach is on the basis that the search engines prioritise the results on the basis of the domain name, title and description. Although the vast majority of sites in general run with a domain named after their business, using one based on appropriate keywords may do slightly better in the search engines.

Of course, this isn’t really an either/or choice as you can obviously register both types. That in turn gives you the chance to promote both domains separately. Say, for example, you went for both selfcateringnormandyonline.com and lemoulinnouveau.com you could promote selfcateringnormandyonline.com in the search engines whilst quoting lemoulinnouveau.com  when advertising on listings sites and for your email eg bookings @ lemoulinnouveau.com.

Checking whether or not a name is still available is easily done. For example, if you go to www.GoDaddy.com you can type in your chosen name at the top of the screen where it says “start domain name search”, click “go” and it’ll come back telling you if it’s registered and offering alternatives too. GoDaddy.com are one of the best and cheapest registrars around (under $10/year for .com) and I use them for all of our new registrations (this doesn’t tie you to using them to host your website).

Once you have chosen the “perfect” name, you should register it immediately. Perhaps you’re the type of person who likes to ruminate over a name for a few days but even in this case you should register it immediately: if it turns out that you’d prefer another name you’re only down about £5 whereas if someone has registered the name whilst you’re still mulling it over, you may need to rethink your name entirely.

Although most people these days aim for the .com it’s also useful to registrar a country specific domain too. So, with our Normandy property, we’d go for selfcateringnormandyonline.co.uk too. This is basically under the heading of “for future use” in case you subsequently decide to run UK specific campaigns.

The registration process itself is fairly simple. Basically once you’ve selected the domain name, you’ll need to fill in address details for yourself and pay for it. Although you can register it for anything from one year to ten years, most people go for the default of two years which, with GoDaddy.com, will cost you around £10 ($20). Obviously if you’re still thinking it over, you should go for a one year registration.

Once you’ve gotten as far as clicking on the final “pay now” button, it takes from a few minutes to a few hours before the domain is available for use. At this point, the domain will be pointed at a GoDaddy.com holding page; we’ll be covering how to configure the domain in our article on setting up an initial webpage.

It probably sounds like it would take ages to do all the above. Although it may take you a few days to select that perfect domain, it’ll only take you 10 minutes to register it.

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