Picking a Domain
Finding a domain is the next thing to do in creating our niche. Domains are like real-estate in the real world except they are in cyberspace. If you can create a niche website that generates steady natural traffic that site can be bought and sold as buildings in the real world. So you can flip websites like you can any other physical product. That is for another post for now let us concern ourselves with locating and purchasing a domain.
Free versus Purchased Domains
In fact you can obtain free domains for testing out a niche to see how well it converts before purchasing however if you are focused and have a passion there is no reason that any niche you work at will not succeed and generate a steady cash flow. Some niches take more work than others and there are many permutations for that.
You can get a FREE WEBSITE AND DOMAIN HERE and they will host the site for you when you sign up as a new member which is totally FREE you don’t even need a credit card.
You can however pay for a domain very cheaply nowadays and if you shop around and look for coupons etc you can get them for a few dollars.
I would recommend purchasing if you have the money as the domain you get at WA is a sub domain of their domain siterubix and doesn’t rank as effectively as a clean domain. It will rank but may take a little longer and again this is down to competition KW used etc. However if money is tight then the FREE one will do the job for now and you can learn how to go through the process without spending anything.
Keyword Rich versus Brandable
OK choosing a domain is another thing to consider. There are two camps on this
a) Keyword rich domain name
b) Brand-able domain name.
Both have their merits so let’s consider them. Everyone on the planet who has an internet connection has heard of Google, Amazon, eBay etc. These are brands and have a high marketing benefit and easy to remember. However buycheapmoviesonline.com is a keyword rich domain and is harder to remember and not a brandable commodity.
Previously keyword rich domains were regarded favorably by Google and gained rank very quickly compared to brands but this has been changed and now both gain the same love from the big G. This domain as you can see is a keyword rich one and I choose that as there was a large amount of traffic searching for it. This means you can start to get some traffic from the KW as well as your articles. However as I gain authority and scale the site up I may change to a brand able domain and re-direct my links so still keep my rankings.
So it doesn’t really matter at this stage how you go about it both have been used successfully and will continue to do so as long as your content is relevant. Finding something catchy as a brand is not always easy so choosing keywords first can be easier then as you build you may come across something that fits.
How to find a domain!
A great site to find domains is Domize you can type in phrases you like and it will tell you instantly what is available. The three main domain extensions are .com, .org and .net. The domain extension .com is the top domain to go for. then .net then .org these seem to rank better in this order than anything else. When searching try to get the .com if not available go for another or keep searching for the .com. I have used all three 
and ranked so it is not that important but .com’s tend to rank quicker. As you can see from the example all three domains are available for this one and if you click on the link .com, you will get a list of places to buy and prices. I like this site as it comes up with all the available domains as you write in the letters and you can come up with a great name you didn’t think off by accident.
Other things to consider when buying the domain is when choosing the keyword rich one you also want to try and get one that has high traffic but low competition. This way you will gain some traffic as you begin to rank from the domain keyword alone.
We shall discuss finding keywords in the next article.
Any questions please leave me a comment and I will get back to you.
Maybe it’s another one of those cultural differences, Mark, but when I read the sub-headers ‘Free v’s Purchased Domains’ and ‘Keyword Rich v’s Brandable’, I had absolutely no clue what you were trying to tell me. I eventually arrived at the conclusion that you’re trying to abbreviate the word ‘versus’, but I’ve never seen that word abbreviated that way. In the U.S., ‘versus’ is abbreviated as vs only, with no apostrophes or additional punctuation. However, since since you’re using this word in a sub-header, I would humbly suggest spelling the word out to eliminate any confusion…because it sure confused me. 🙂
Hey Bill you do have a point, I have updated it now to read correctly. Abbreviations are OK if everyone knows what you are on about. Glad you got there in the end. Its funny it read so easily to me. I want to keep me character without loosing to the grammar changes across the pond.
I learned about choosing a branded domain by Jay. My own campaign is my name.
Yea Jay is top, I don’t catch enough of his webinars. I watch the recordings and they are always so full of relevant info.
Very timely, I will be picking a new domain this weekend. I really don’t know that much about them as I’ve been using Squidoo only. Guess I’m getting ready to learn. The information provided here will be a huge help, thank you!
Meredith if you want a hand in choosing one let me know but as highlighted in the article its more to do with the content that you provide that will give ranking than the domain itself.
That looks a little bit more difficult than Squidoo Lens but I must try to do one soon. Thanks Mark
It really isn’t Lucy I haven’t done a lens yet started one a while back and still to finish. Maybe you can teach me and I’ll teach you. Fair enough?
Informative article. When I clicked on (Free Domain Here) it sent me to my WA dashboard. Not sure that’s what you wanted
Hi John thanks for pointing that out have fixed it now had it pointing at my dashboard instead of the home page. Doh!
It is the first time I see a post with this information. I think it is very helpful because you can find so many different advice when buying a new domain and sometimes you don’t know what to do. I did not know you can link from your successful website to a new one. I heard in the past to link into new websites gives you bad rank.
Lorena its called redirecting and you can change a domain name and load it up with your old site redirecting all the page links so Google knows its your content and you get to keep all the rankings, pretty cool. Dom over at WA did “Good Tutorial” on how to do it.
That’s great because with my domain I feel kind of trapped now, it is too narrow and I would love to make more reviews of different other cat products.
Yea that one is kind of narrow and doesn’t leave much room for movement. I would call it a micro niche.