How to choose the best domain name for your website

The first step before embarking on the great adventure that is having a website is choose the name of the domain. In today's post we are going to talk about it and I'll give you the keys to get started on the right foot with a web business.

What is a domain used for?

A web domain is the URL that people write to be able to access our web site. Without the domain name will only be able to access a web page by typing the IP of the server, so that is very important. Many times when we talk about domain we see it as a set, but it really it consists of several things to keep in mind when creating a website:

1. The importance of the secure HTTPS protocol

The protocol of the domain is the first part of a web domain. Basically informs us with what device I connect. To access a web page it is necessary to the HTTP protocol, hypertext transfer but not the only way, we can find other protocols such as FTP for file transfers or SMTP for the transfer of emails.

We could talk a lot about this topic but really what we want to know here is the difference between HTTP and HTTPS.

HTTP vs HTTPS

We could say that the HTTPS is a variant of the HTTP that done by installing a certificate of secure protocol SSL for your domain. This can be done very easy, simply contact with the platform on which you have the domain and install it. It is vital to have an SSL certificate since Google prioritizes results for HTTPS at the time of positioning a web site. What you get with a HTTPS protocol is that the sensitive data, such as customer data, are encrypted. That is to say, it makes those data are safe.

2. The subdomain of a website

The subdomain of a website also has a lot of importance of face to SEO.  Every time we change a subdomain, Google recalculates new web rankings because for him, to understand each other easily, comes to a new website. From Elabs, we recommend that, if we do not have a web with more than 10,000 urls, it makes no sense to generate new domains.

Something very common that we also want to point out is that many times we find ourselves with a domain that exists both with the subdomain “www” and without the. As you can imagine this creates a problem as for Google, there's two websites are identical. For this version you should be redirected with a 301 to the final version that we want.

3. The name of the domain

Not everything important in online business is SEO. In this moment is where we get to choose how we are going to present to you, what will be our name. This you do not have so much importance in face of SEO but if it is very important in order to create a web business. Anyway, we should not go crazy, I spent a few guidelines:

• Positioning a brand: If the purpose is the branding, you can opt for the name of the domain to be the brand of the company.

EXAMPLE:https://www.nike.com/

• Position a local business: If the activity of the company is focused on a very specific area you can choose to include local references.

EXAMPLE:  https://www.disfrutabarcelona.com/

• Position a keyword: If we want to emphasize the products or services that we offer, you can choose to include keywords.

EXAMPLE: https://floresnavarro.com/

From Elabs what recommend is to make a strategy hybrid when choosing a domain name. The example of https://floresnavarro.com/ combines keyword and brand name.

4. Extension of domain or TLD

Finally, we come to the last item, and this turns to be very important. As a general rule, we would advise the “.com” as is the extension to more common and is used with commercial use. When this extension is already in use, you may opt for “.net”, although originally it was intended to technological issues. However, it is not the only option.

• According to the sector of activity: Here enter the extension as “.org” for non-profit organizations, “.info” or “.edu”, for example. Depending on the type of business you want to create, these extensions will help us.
• According to the venue: If our activity is focused on a specific site, we may opt for extensions of type “.is”, “.cat”, “.mx(Mexico)... But very careful with this! If we choose for example an extension “.is” ( Spain) our website will not show up in search results for users that are in other countries or it is very difficult to show up.

And that would be all! Now you know what is very important in the SEO on a web domain and what is not so much. We hope this will help you to create a web and see you in the following posts. We enclose the PFD that we have used for the video with the links of interest.