Buying a domain may sound simple, and in a way, it is. You decide on a name, and if it’s available, you buy it.

There’s a little more to it than that, though. You have to come up with a simple url that makes sense to the average person and tells a little bit about your site. Then you have to see if it and / or any variations of it are available for purchase.

You have to decide on a .com, a .org or a .net appellation, or among a host of others. You need to see if there are any common misspellings that might be worth buying as well, to ensure that all traffic, even if misdirected by a faulty keystroke, will reach you and not your competition.

Domain names that have your main keywords can be good, but more importantly is your brand name. Something that catches the eye and is memorable is best – for example, a site devoted to flower delivery could be called RosesToGo or StoreToDoorFlowers.

A misspelling such as HotDawgCookers could be available and become a decently memorable brand if you happened to specialize in specialty cooking gadgets.

The reason for buying up the spelling variants and different IP addresses is to be able to park the domains and redirect the traffic to your main site. That way you don’t lose any prospective customers just because they made a typo or didn’t know how to spell.

Don’t start checking out domain names too far ahead of when you are ready to buy. There are unscrupulous businesses out there that will watch to see what domain names are being searched, then will jump in and snap them up to turn around and offer them for resale at ridiculous prices.

Play it close to the vest until you have a clear direction, then search all your possible domains and try to make a decision that day. This may involve doing a little preparation in advance searchin for difeerent keyword pgrases, etc depending on the direction you plan to take with your site, but realy in the end your domain name isn’t as closely connected with your keywords as it is with your brand name.

Don’t forget to remember to re-register when your year is up – not just your main domain but any of your parked domains as well. However, (and here’s another scam’ don’t respond to ‘courtesy’ emails that seek to inform you your domain will run out soon, but you can have extensive savings by renewing through he email sender.

These are almost always a trick to get you to sign with them for a higher fee than what you would normally pay for a domain name, and should be avoided. Several of these companies have been taken to court, but they are still very accessible.

Your domain name is what people look for, what they hang on to from past visits and where they tell their friends to go! Make it a name to remember!