Choosing a Domain Name

Your choice of domain name is relatively
straightforward it is simply your primary keyword phrase or something
very similar. So if the website is focused on healthy food recipes
then the first choice domain name would be.

www.healthyfoodrecipes.com

A quick check (April 2005) shows is as still being
available. Assume that it wasn’t then you would look for permutations
like:

• healthy-food-recipes.com

• healthy-food-guide

• healthy-food-recipe-guide

• healthyfoodrecipes

• healthyfoodrecipeguide

I would also consider using another top level domain
extension other than the .com like .biz, .ws, .info, .net, .org in that order.

You should notice that I have not separated the individual words in the preferred domain name. The main search engines can currently correctly recognise them as three separate words,
and hence there is not need to help them by using a delimiter like a dash (-) or an underscore(_).

That was not always the case; which is way you see many sites that use the  dash (-) or underscore(_), including this one.

I only would use the delimiter if the other domain name was already taken and I would always use the dash (-).

Country Specific TLDs

If your niche is focused mainly for a local market
especially in a non English language then I would advise you to use
country specific TLDs like .de for Germany, .fr for France etc.

Only use a geographic TLD is you are definitely country specific. Search engines have started to give preference to UK sites for UK originating searches, and as they
move to implement local search they could differentiate even more.

Using More than One Domain Name

In order to protect their name many companies register several Top level domain names e.g. the don’t just have .com they also register .net, .org, .co.uk etc. For large corporations
this is ok, but for small niche website owners then it is a bit of an over kill.

Registering a Domain Name

Although you don’t have to, you should always register
your domain name with the same company that is going to do the website
hosting. This is especially true for beginners. So if company A is going to host the website then Company A is
also the one you register the domain name with.

So don’t register the domain name until you have chosen
the hosting provider.

If you want to know more my other site has more detail
on domain names . If you need some additional inspiration for a domain name then the tool at
www.nameboy.com has an excellent
domain search facility and will provide alternative name suggestions.