Choosing the domain for your company is not just a matter of picking any word that you think sounds good. So often people make the mistake of buying a domain name immediately because its available or if its short. Fair enough if you have to have your company name within the domain, but even those instances aren’t always the best in terms of search engine optimization. If you’re trying to think of a domain name, don’t fall into the trap of creating some crazy word that looks or sounds “cool”. A number of factors need to be considered before putting all your effort into a site with your selected domain name. Here are some of the key points I consider before buying a domain:

1/ Make sure its .com - Don’t settle for .net, .info, .biz or any other extension. Unless you’re going for local markets, you’ll have to go with an extension with your country abbreviation.People remember .com’s more often than any other extension and search engines also tend to like the .com in domains. (This is just from experience and results I’ve seen).

2/ Is the URL memorable? Don’t buy a domain name that is 20+ characters long. It must be short and distinct. If its not short, at least have the domain readable or something that’s catchy.

3/ Does the domain make sense? I’ve seen a lot of companies with abbreviated URL’s and I have no idea what they’re market focus is until I look closer into their site. If you want people to know what you do and sort of content is within the site, make it obvious in the URL. Some companies have strange URL’s as well which is not wrong, but having a simplified domain that is obvious could equate to reducing brand awareness advertisement costs by hundreds, maybe even thousands if you plan on doing any press releases or offline promotion activity.

4/ Have an obvious Theme - Not only should the domain make sense, but it should also be centrally focussed on a topic. Some good examples of quality domains (not necessarily quality websites):
http://www.carsales.com.au
http://www.hotels.com
http://www.qualitywallets.com
http://www.seochat.com

5/ Include your main keywords in the domain - These days search engines have been picking up keywords in domains, bolding them as the results come up.

No doubt it has some value various search engines algorithms such as Google. Even if it doesn’t, a domain with keywords will be easier to remember than some random selection of characters or letters.

6/ Have a few options for domains - I usually write down a few domains that I might like to have and then do extensive research on those selected keywords within the domain. Competitiveness of keywords is not a huge factor in my opinion as good SEO, individual drive and more importantly hard work, would get you to the top of search engines with the right domain. What is extremely important though is the frequency of the searched term. Again, selecting the right keywords in your domain will put you several steps in front of other sites when in comes to SERP’s. For example, if I was doing a site on cars (assuming none of the following are taken) these could be good domains:
http://www.cheapcars.com
http://www.discountcars.com
http://www.cheapvehicles.com
http://www.discountvehicles.com
http://www.bargaindriveaways.com
http://www.carstosell.com

They’re just some random URL ideas off the top of my head. By all means take them if they’re not taken already since I won’t be doing a car site.

7/ Do some Keyword Research - I’d probably be spending most of my time with this last step. Extensively researching keyword competitiveness through wordtracker or any other keyword research tools. Its vital to get this right. I know its just the domain, but I like having all my on-page optimization and domain URL’s synchronized so that its clearly visible to both search engines and visitors what my site is about. More research is done with inner URL’s since there’s more opportunity for keyword selections.