Choose A Domain Name

For the Simple Internet Business system, you're going to need a real website, which means you'll need to register a real domain name.

There are some general rules to keep in mind when you choose a domain name.

Short And Sweet
Keep it as short as possible. Short and simple names are almost always best. Of course, most of the 'one word' domain names are long gone.

Choose a .com or a .org.
The search engines apparently rank .org domain names higher than .com names these days.

Keywords are (probably) good
The search engines don't rank keywords in a domain name quite as highly as they used to. So think about creating a short, generic name instead - like 'Google' or 'Yahoo' (well, you get the idea...). Otherwise, a three-word phrase works pretty well.

Spell it Out
Try telling someone else what your domain name is. You may find that it's not as easy to say as you think.

I use a couple of tools to help me choose domain names.

• MakeWords
  
  MakeWords generates domain names based on a keyword (which you enter) and a list of prefixes and suffixes for various fields.



• NameBoy
  
  If MakeWords doesn't work for you, give NameBoy a try. Enter one or two keywords and the system will generate a slew of possible options.



• Google Keyword Tool and Moniker.com

The 2-step approach using the Google Keyword Tool and Moniker.com has been quite effective for me.

Step 1:
Go to the Google Keyword Tool and enter your keyword or key phrase - I'll use "fat loss".

Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on "Add all 119" (or whatever number it says).



Now scroll up to the top of the page again. You'll see that your keywords have been added to the "Selected Keyword" list on the right-hand side of the page.

Scroll down to the end of the "Selected Keywords" list. Click on the "text" link.



Click on "OK" to open the list of keywords in NotePad.



Hit "Ctrl-A" to select all of the keywords, then "Ctrl-C" to copy them to the clipboard. Then go to Moniker.com.

Click on "multiple domains"



Click in the "Register Multiple Domains" form, then press "Ctrl-V" to paste the keyword list from Notepad into the form.



If you only want to find '.com' domain names, you can scroll down to the "Search" button at the bottom of the page. I'm going to check '.org' domain names as well, so I select 'Check the entered domains plus' and clear all the check marks except .com and .org.



Hit 'Search'.

Moniker shows you a list of available domain names. All you have to do is choose one.



If you want to validate your choice, you can try this method.
Go to NameBoy. Click on 'Appraisals' in the top menu.



Type the domain name (or names) you want to appraise in the form, then enter your email address. Hit 'Submit'.



It takes a while, but Nameboy will email you a detailed appraisal. Unlike most free appraisal services on the Internet, like DNScoop, NameBoy's appraisal ignores traffic, Page Rank, links, Alexa rank and so on. The NameBoy appraisal is based purely on the intrinsic value of the domain name, ie the length, use of keywords etc.

Whether this actually translates into real money when you try to sell the domain name is another question.

To register your domain name, I recommend NameCheap.
Their control panel system is the easiest I've tried, and their service is great.