Web Affiliate Marketing Blog

Every now and then I get a sudden urge to start a new website or a PPC campaign but always seem to stumble when it comes to domain names. If I am running a PPC campaign for a merchant that I know is only going to last a few weeks or months, then I dont see the point in investing too much time, money or effort in obtaining a domain name or developing a site.

In the past, for quickfire campaigns like these, I have always created a subdomain such as http://antlife.myppc.co.uk/. It save me a buying a domain, assigning another account, setting bandwidth and disk space limits etc. However, what if you are in it for the long haul and you really want an asthetically pleasing domain name? Do you choose one that has the keywords in to help with SEO, or choose something obscure but catchy, that doesn’t necessarily has anything to do with the service or product. After all, does SMILE or CAHOOT really tell you that behind the name there is a financial institute?

Say in this example you want to target or concentrate on the Childrens Clothing market, and its a merchant or product that has got a long life span, i.e. not a 2 month campaign. In my opinion it is best to obtain a domain name which, if possible, reflects what the site/market is, and if at all possible, contains a keyword or two. The problem most of us face nowadays is that a lot of generic domain names have already been taken, most in the hope to sell on to others at an over inflated price.

How about domain name suggestion websites and utilities? Well some of these can be extremely helpful in identifying domains that are available, based around your keywords. Often is the case that after a few tries, you will find a domain name that is ideally suited to your next venture, but is constructed in a way, or uses words, that you previously hadn’t thought of.

The above screen capture was from DomainsBot which I have only recently discovered, yet is providing to be very useful. The only problem with this, as with the majority of these tools, is that it is very much US orientated, in that it only searches com, net, org, info, biz and us suffixes. As of yet, I haven’t managed to come across a tool or website that includes the co.uk or the org.uk suffixes.

Other sites I use as a source of inspiration when on the domain name hunt include;
DomainTools
NameBoy