• Lesson number: 26
• Year of implementation: 2021
• Belonging to the project: A Beginner's Guide to Using WordPress

Any intention to conquer the online world, whether starting an online business or simply sharing a blog, the first requirement is to choose a good domain name.

Domain names are very similar to real estate that we have to spend money to rent, if we choose a high-end, beautiful and convenient location – the possibility of successful business is very high and vice versa.

But ironically, domain names are not expensive, only about 10 USD (equivalent to 230,000 VND, at 2017 exchange rates), and many people may therefore have been very sketchy in choosing a domain name for later. have to regret. (I used to be like that too!).

You might ask questions like this:

If you buy a domain name you don't like, just choose another name, it's okay, the price is cheap too!

Not as simple as that.

While buying a new domain name is easy and transferring a website isn't so difficult, it can be incredibly damaging:

• Affect your BRAND
• Affects your website's ranking on search engines

And the longer the old site exists, the more likely it is to change to the new site.

To make it easy to imagine, it is like changing your name, having to redo dozens of papers, a lot of information that cannot be changed in time will conflict with each other causing trouble.

And I'm just assuming you're normal (like me), if you're famous or important, that gets you in even more trouble.

All these detours are only meant to lead you to this point: Choose your domain name carefully. And in this article I will share all the experiences that I know with you.

Note: All specific domain names mentioned in this article may actually exist or are just illustrative examples. To make it easier for you to understand, I myself used to be very silly when choosing a domain name.

Let's start.

1. If you already have a brand, choose that brand as your domain name

This is the easiest and most suitable way to choose a domain name if you already have a brand.

Users themselves will also type your brand name into Google to search your website, and it's not good if the chain's brand name is different from the online brand name.

Imagine how inconvenient it would be for Apple not to own the apple.com domain name?

Here are a few examples of big brands unifying names both in chain stores and online domains:

• bigc.vn (Big C Supermarket)
• mediamart.vn (MediaMart electronics supermarket)
• thegioididong.com (Mobile World)

Of the two domains above, one is much more beautiful, perhaps you also realize the reason, I will talk more about this in the short domain name and easy-to-type domain name.

Now the question for the unbranded, how do I get started with an idea?

2. Feel free to think of domain name ideas

There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to domain name ideas. Here are some steps that many people often take:

• Write down the keywords that are most relevant to the site you intend to build
• Write down synonyms or near-meanings
• Write down words with associated ideas and hidden meanings
• If you are targeting a fixed geographical area, you can add landmarks
• Add prefixes or suffixes to add meaning to the domain name
• Aim for brand new words

To create a beautiful domain name you need to combine words, mix ideas together, if only applied in one way, the domain name sometimes you think is good but it turns out not!

I will give examples that are easier to understand.

Websites that always use the most relevant keywords as domain names: baomoi.com (New Newspaper), dienthoai.com (Phone)

These are domain names that exactly match the keyword, in some cases it is good, even good but most of the time it is not beneficial, details I will cover in sections 3 and 4.

Sites use affiliate words as domain names: this often results in a good domain name that may not require additional steps. Surely most of you have just heard of this domain name chungme.com (Canh Me), although the word "canh me" when I tried to look it up in GS.Hoang Phe's Vietnamese dictionary (editor) didn't exist, but the meaning of this word is called by many people to stalk, seize the opportunity. The purpose of the above website is to share coupons, discount codes and promotions. Promo codes are characterized by a short application period (usually a few days), so if you do not act quickly, the opportunity will run out. The author's choice of the domain name chungme.com is indeed very meaningful, in short, it is also good. What's more interesting, this site was formerly known as chiasecoupon.com (Coupon sharing / keyword exact match type domain).

Now comes the very interesting part. Let's see how prefixes or suffixes help create a good domain name:

• Store : linkstore.vn; thuhuongstore.com
• Mart : bibomart.com.vn; lottemart.com.vn
• Mobile : hoanghamobile.com; happymobile.vn

You can see that their common feature is the combination of proper noun + common noun, and in some cases, two common nouns are rarely combined (like media and mart; or happy and mobile).

Many prefixes and suffixes use English words but are very common words, almost everyone understands the meaning, for example, in addition to the above words, there are shop, news, web, book, blog …

Before going into the next section, make a list of domains you can think of.

3. Unique domain name is better than generic

The domain name is now your first and foremost BRAND. A unique domain name helps you stand out from many competitors.

And only unique domain names make up a brand, domain names with general meaning never have that possibility.

I'll give you a few interesting examples.

For example, there is a company that sells hosting and they want to set their domain name as dammay.com

The above domain is definitely a branding mistake, since Cloud is a common noun it doesn't make any significant impression.

Of course there are always exceptions, apple.com uses domain names as a common noun, but they are extremely successful, ranking among the top companies in the world. But who can be like Apple? Also, it's very important to remember: Apple was famous for its brand name before it even had a website. The domain name is now under the existing brand name.

Another example, Nhat Cuong Mobile has a very nice keyword domain name: dienthoaididong.com, looking at this domain name you can immediately guess what they sell, it is somewhat useful for business but not a name. good branding domain because it is very generic.

A better name they should give is nhatcuong.com or nhatcuongmobile.com

(When I checked, I found that they already owned the domain nhatcuong.com, and pointed it to dienthoaididong.com, I think they should do the opposite.)

A very typical case illustrating this case is the website dienmayxanh.com, belonging to Mobile World Joint Stock Company.

This website was originally called thegioidientu.com, then changed its name to dienmay.com in 2011, finally renamed in 2015 to dienmayxanh.com

The domain name dienmay.com is not a brand name and is just a common noun, while Dien May Xanh (dienmayxanh.com) is a very clearly branded domain name.

What about the thegioidientu.com domain name, it certainly seems to be inspired by the thegioididong.com domain name, but you can see that these two brand domains are easy to confuse with each other, and that is also what is needed. avoid. . domain name effort.

Personally, I used to choose the generic domain name mangluoitoancau.com, then changed it to ducanhplus.com a few years later.

4. Domain names that exactly match keywords can be a double-edged sword

In Part 2, this story was told. Keyword domains are divided into two types, keyword exact match domains (exact match domains/EMD) and partial keyword match domains (partial match domains/PMD).

The second type will be discussed in the next section, we will discuss the first type first.

For example, if you sell e-bikes, the domain with exact match keywords would be a domain like xedapdien.com or xedapdien.vn

Domain names that exactly match keywords usually belong to the group of generic domain names, of course as mentioned in part 3, it is not strong in terms of BRAND.

SEO novices love domain names that exactly match keywords, because for a long time, search engines, especially Google, have favored this type of domain name.

At that time, you just need to choose the domain name that exactly matches the keyword, the possibility of going to the top is very high even though the content or backlink is nothing special.

Now everything has changed.

In 2012, Matt Cutts, former head of the web antispam team at Google, revealed:

The idea is that domains that exactly match keywords no longer carry the same weight as they used to in search results (they call it an EMD update).

So if you really want to be a brand, stay away from domains that match your exact keywords.

Questions you might ask right now:

So why are domain names that exactly match the keyword still being bought a lot, even a fairly successful business?

If you just want a pure, profitable business, exact match domains still work, especially for businesses that aren't focused on branding.

What types of businesses are they?

A product or service over a lifetime can only be used a few times, even once, such as fixing a door lock, buying a new laptop charger, painting a house.

For example, when I look up the keyword "Hanoi laptop repair" on Google, all of the top domains are generic, aiming to match a specific keyword exactly:

1. hanoi computer repair
2. laptop repair 24h

I repeat again, choose a branded domain name if you want big and long term business, because a domain name that exactly matches the keyword is beneficial, but not the most profitable. you can achieve.

Now let's talk about partial exact match keywords.

5. Domain names containing a keyword part are often useful

When I try to look up the keyword to buy iphone phones, in order to find websites that sell phones, the results:

So the first 3 results with thegioididong, fptshop, cellphones, are domains containing keywords related to mobile.

The other half I can't take screenshots also have duchuymobile and mobilecity.

You may find that domain names containing part of a keyword are very common, and that is very useful, because this type of domain name fulfills two requirements:

• Still have a brand by attaching another name next to the keyword
• Assure visitors that this page is focused on the product or service or whatever else they are looking for

A very popular way to do this for small and medium businesses is to pair your name with the product/service.

Note that the domain name contains a keyword part with the domain name using suffixes and prefixes that do not match, for example bibomart.com.vn (specializing in selling baby goods) is the domain name used. suffix mart combined with words with the idea of ​​children bibo

6. Imitation of other domain name ideas is possible but do not confuse the brand

If I sell books online and see my potential competitors with names like vinabook, pibook, anybooks, nhasachphuongnam, bookbuy, then I can mimic the idea of ​​naming it ducanhbook, for example.

It's not a great domain name, but it's usable. In general, limited imitation is usually not harmful.

However, if you are going to create a confusing name, such as intentionally misleading users with the name vinabookk, this is something to avoid altogether. Or if you have nothing to do with FPT and are selling phones, don't put a domain name like FPTphone.vn or FPTmobile.vn, people might think this is FPT's website selling phones when it's not.

It infuriates buyers if they find out. It is also very likely that you will be sued for using a fake domain name of a big brand.

7. Prioritize choosing .com . domain names

There are many statistics about the head-to-tail ratio of different types of domain names, the number varies depending on the research method, but .com domain names still account for the highest percentage of the group.

For example, a study of the 10 million most popular domains (according to Alexa traffic) conducted by W3Techs gave the following results (I only took a partial screenshot, if you want to see more visit visit the link above):

For Registrar Statistics based on all registered domains, 75% of domains belong to .com, followed by .net and .org:

The advice here is easy to understand: Choose a .com domain name first, in case it is already registered by someone else, choose a .net or .org domain name instead.

Another very effective option is to buy a country-level domain name, for example, in Vietnam, two popular domain name extensions chosen by many big brands are .vn or .com.vn

With the official extension of top level domains, such as .vet .ink .co .tv .shop .me .live .life .club .online .pro etc domain names, but you need to be very Be careful when choosing these domains as most users are still new to them and they may feel hesitant to click on it or not.

One more reason to use a .com domain, see my phone screenshot below, it has a dedicated .com button to type this popular domain name faster:

8. Don't be afraid of meaningless domain names

The domain name can have very obvious meaning to the user in case it uses partial (or full) exact keyword matching.

There are many successful domains that apply that way. Both small companies and global companies (e.g. Gmail or Hotmail has a pretty obvious meaning right?).

But there are also many top domain names in the world, when you first see it, you will not know what the purpose is, you even know the English meaning of each word inside (if any). Such as:

• Google
• Bing
• YouTube
• Amazon
• Alibaba
• Wikipedia
• Facebook
• Yahoo!

The chance of success is for both. So if you're thinking of buying a domain name with a whole new meaning, don't panic. Just pay attention to the sections mentioned below, as effective domains (including top domains) often meet those standards.

Just a small note: many people say that domain names with new words often cost more in marketing if they want to position their brand than a domain with keywords that indicate it intends to offer a product. or service. What. So, of course, it is safer to choose a domain name that contains part of a keyword or a domain name that has a hidden meaning.

9. An easy-to-remember domain name is extremely important

Sure, your domain name needs to be easy to remember. Whether someone wants to access it, or chat with their friends, the prerequisite is that they need to remember it first.

Try an extreme domain example like this (I'm sure no one wants to buy or has bought): abc.com

How many people remember it and find it through a search engine?

Memorable domains include a host of other related attributes, which I'll talk about shortly:

• Brief
• Easy to type
• Easy to pronounce

10. The shorter the domain name, the better

This certainly goes without saying, short domains facilitate in two extremely important respects:

• Easier to remember
• Type faster

There is a study that calculated the domain length of the most popular websites in the world (popularity by traffic):

• Top 5 Most Popular Websites
  Average domain name length = 6.0
• Top 10 Most Popular Websites
  Average domain length = 6.1
• Top 25 Most Popular Websites
  Average domain name length = 6.0
• Top 50 Most Popular Websites
  Average domain name length = 6.0
• Top 100 Most Popular Websites
  Average domain length = 6.2
• Top 250 Most Popular Websites
  Average domain length = 6.4
• Top 500 Most Popular Websites
  Average domain length = 6.8
• Top 1,000 Most Popular Websites
  Average domain length = 7.0
• Top 5,000 Most Popular Websites
  Average domain name length = 7.7
• Top 10,000 Most Popular Websites
  Average domain length = 8.0
• Top 25,000 Most Popular Websites
  Average domain length = 8.4
• Top 50,000 Most Popular Websites
  Average domain length = 8.7
• Top 100,000 Most Popular Websites
  Average domain name length = 9.1
• Top 250,000 Most Popular Websites
  Average domain length = 9.5
• Top 500,000 Most Popular Websites
  Average domain name length = 9.8
• Top 1,000,000 Most Popular Websites
  Average domain length = 10.1

It is clear that the top pages have the shortest domains, and the lower ranking pages are the longer ones.

I did a little research, based on Similarweb's information about the top websites in Vietnam, here are a few names in the top 20 (I actively exclude international sites like facebook, google, youtube from the list). Click here to see how country-specific):

• vnexpress.net
• 24h.com.vn
• kenh14.vn
• baomoi.com
• dantri.com.vn

About 6 characters on average.

The follow-up survey was equally fun.

Search engines themselves are one of the most commonly typed domains directly into the browser, check out their domain lengths (sorted below by search market share):

1) Google

2) Bing

3) Yahoo

4) Baidu

5) Ask

6) AOL

7) Excite

The average length is only 4.4 characters.

If you want to know if any "terrible" long domains actually exist, here it is: PI Number

11. Choose a domain name that is easy to type

Short domains should not be confused with easy-to-type domains, although it is true that short domains are often easier to type.

But there are also many short domain names that are not easy to type and conversely, long but easy to type.

Consider the following domain: kemsigo.vn (Sigo Candy)

This domain name is very short, only 6 characters, easy to type, but when you try to manipulate the browser address bar, something like keéoigo or kkeosigo.vn will occur.

This strange phenomenon is because most computers in Vietnam have Vietnamese percussion installed (eg UniKey, VietKey), typing the character "s" after typing "glue" will be equivalent to an accent mark. and make the wrong name as above.

I've said half-jokingly, half-truthly, that Unikey has screwed up a lot of good domains.

Another example: vnexpress.net

This website belongs to the group of the most famous online newspapers in Vietnam, the domain name is meaningful and quite short, but it is not a pure Vietnamese word and is a bit difficult to pronounce, so it is difficult to remember and not easy. kind, especially to those unfamiliar with English.

Next example: vietnamnet.vn

This is not a short domain name, it is medium length, but easy to type as well as easy to remember.

12. Domain names need to be easy to read and pronounce

Readable domain names have three very important effects:

• Easier to recall
• Usually easy to type
• Easy to spread word of mouth

Because the Vietnamese language is a sound recording, it is usually a meaningful and easy-to-read name. Difficulty reading or pronouncing is often caused by:

1. You use a foreign language as part of the domain name or the entire domain name like the example of vnexpress.net
2. You use words that are easily misspelled or sounds that are too difficult to read next to each other

The first case is more common.

Check out this domain: elle.vn

It belongs to the group of extremely short domain names, easy to type but difficult to pronounce, so other people only need to listen to it to know exactly what the domain name is like.

Of course, since Elle is a long-standing magazine brand with French roots, it's unlikely they changed the domain name just because it's hard to pronounce, and in fact shouldn't.

Another example: esquirevietnam.com.vn

This Vietnamese version of men's magazine has a domain name that includes many unfavorable elements:

• Long (up to 15 characters)
• Difficulty pronouncing (from esqurie), leading to hard-to-remember consequences
• Difficult to type (because there is an s after the e, forming a sharp accent). Of course, hard to remember also makes typing even more difficult

The conclusion here is that you have to be careful when including foreign words in domain names for Vietnamese people.

13. Be careful when using numbers or hyphens in domain names

Numbers and hyphens (hyphen, hyphen) can be confusing, so use extreme caution if you want your domain name to include them.

For example, when someone says something like this:

Go to the website at three o'clock dot com dot vn, a lot of good things

Some people will not know whether to use written numbers or mathematical numbers, which means it is not clear whether the website is 3gio.com.vn or bagio.com.vn

Needless to say, domain names with numbers are not always bad. For example, the following websites are in the top group in Vietnam in terms of traffic:

• 24h.com.vn
• kenh14.vn
• 2banh.vn
• thethao247.vn

It is due to the habit of using mathematical numbers in writing some types of numbers as well as the ease of remembering the spelling that users find reasonable.

• Due to brevity, once a user sees the domain name kenh14.vn, they will remember it using mathematical numbers, not storing information in a fourteenth channel fashion (kenhmuoibon.vn).
• 24h is a much more common way of writing twenty four hours or twenty four hours (haitugio.com.vn)
• 247 is also a much more reasonable way to write twenty four out of seven (no one finds it reasonable with the domain thethaohaitutrenbay.vn at all)

We tried to find out how to use numbers in the top 100 thousand domains in the world according to Alexa and the results showed that pages using numbers are not uncommon, up to 8% of pages are used. And there are some numbers that are more common than others, such as 2, 3, 24, 365, 360, etc.

To better compare the characteristics of Vietnam, let's learn how to use numbers in .vn domain names of more than 7000 domain names with numbers. The results obtained have many similarities as well as many differences compared to the numbering of global domain names in general.

As for the hyphen, try to imagine that my domain name is duc-anh-plus.com rather than the solid ducanhplus.com. How many percent do you think you will type the correct domain name duc-anh-plus.com when someone introduces it, not to mention the unnecessary troubles when typing extra dashes.

Yet again, while examining the top 1 million websites in the world, we found that up to 10% of domain names have hyphens, which is not a small number.

14. Choose a good looking domain name

The domain name is written seamlessly, so there is a chance that there is a problem where you might confuse the words separating the words from each other.

For example, I sell wedding dresses, and the store is called Duc Anh Wedding Dress, which is perfectly fine and is a popular naming convention.

However, the domain name aocuoi.com is not morphologically beautiful because the division between ao and cuoi is not easy, the reason is that there are many Vietnamese words with the word oc.

15. Try asking people around your domain name

But remember it must be an extremely close person, because if someone is greedy they can quickly buy it first, stealing your domain name !!!

Why is it so important to ask others?

Because you will see and hear things that only you will never know. Each person is framed by his or her own knowledge.

Others can point out silly mistakes of domain names such as bad customs, crimes.

They can also recommend super cool new domains.

16. Choosing to buy multiple domain extensions at the same time is often unnecessary

Apple owns a bunch of domains like apple.net, apple.us, apple.co.uk, apple.tv, apple.me (probably many more that I don't know about) and they all point to the main domain name apple.com – but you need to remember that Apple is a huge company, spending thousands of dollars to buy that number of domain names is a very small matter.

In the articles I consulted before writing this, only Godaddy recommend buying different domain extensions to protect your brand, they even recommend buying the wrong variations description of the domain name – but Godaddy is a company that sells domain names, this advice is not necessarily wrong but clearly intends to sell.

In most cases, it is enough for individuals or small companies to purchase a .com domain name.

For companies that want to protect their trademarks in Vietnam, they can purchase additional domain names .com.vn and .vn; In fact, in our research on the domain names of the top 100 private enterprises in Vietnam, speculation is common.

Depending on your specific niche, you may be able to purchase additional extensions that make sense, but you should also consider whether it's worth it (for example, for education, you might consider purchasing additional extensions. wide .edu).

If you are a very careful person, buy .net and .org at most

Otherwise, at least at this point when you're just starting out in business, it doesn't matter.

17. Should I buy a premium domain name?

Premium domain names are domain names that are already owned by other organizations or individuals, possibly acquired by them accidentally, but often for the purpose of speculation to resell for profit.

The common feature of this type of domain name is that they are very beautiful (according to many different criteria), many people want to own it, so its price can range from a few hundred to a thousand or a few tens of thousands of dollars. . price in the sky. If you are curious, I have listed here the 100 most expensive domains in the world, the last name on the list is also $800,000.

For example, the domain name vietnamnews.com is being sold on sedo, you must have 1 million USD or more to buy it!

In the process of searching for domain names, you will most likely encounter such domains.

The question is should I buy it or not? For example, a premium domain name only costs a few hundred dollars, or whatever you can afford.

There is NO definite answer.

Personally, I never buy premium domains but that's because I don't feel it's worth spending tens of millions of dong. If you feel the domain name deserves it, then buying it back shouldn't be a problem.

But to defend my point, the bottom line of this section is this: you can always find another domain name to replace the premium domain.

18. If you buy a domain name for your personal blog, choose your own name too

This is easy to understand, if your name is Thu Huong, then choose the domain name thuhuong.com. Although there is now a .blog extension, I think the thuhuong.blog domain name is not very good, at least for the time being.

The method of using a proper name is a popular naming method for personal blogs, not only in Vietnam but also in the world.

Of course, if you have a common name (ie, many people have the same name), the possibility of a domain name under your own name is not high anymore, for example, I cannot register the domain ducanh.com

Then add other prefixes or suffixes that you find interesting, such as adding the blog prefix to get the domain blogthuhuong.com

There are other problems that may arise. Your name may be difficult to pronounce or you may find it unappealing.

Then choose a nickname, a nickname, or even come up with a new name (if you notice many writers choose names that are more meaningful or beautiful than their real names).

19. Make sure the corresponding name on the major social networks remains

Choosing a domain name is no longer just a game, even if you choose a domain name you like, the corresponding name on major social networks is taken by others, sometimes that may not happen. case. good in the future, especially if that social network plays an important role when interacting with your “customers”.

For example, in Vietnam, Facebook is very meaningful, try to check if the corresponding domain name is still available or not. Or whatever social network you consider important (YouTube, Instagram, etc.).

For example, I have registered the corresponding name for the fanpage of this website at: facebook.com/xuanchuong

The domain name is more important anyway, so if the above name is no longer available, I can register another name, for example: facebook.com/xuanchuong.com or even facebook.com/xuanchuongfan

It's rare that the name on a social network is so important that since it's been taken, you have to change the domain name.

A tool for you to easily check names on multiple social networks at once is KnowEm.

I just tried the name that can be registered (I tried the keyword hanoi), the result is as expected (you guys have already registered):

20. Don't rush to buy a domain name

Many people often come up with an idea for a domain name within minutes, or hours, and then get up and buy it right away thinking it's an extremely attractive name.

They even subscribe to it long term, 3 years, 5 years or sometimes 10 years.

Then leave it at that and never use it.

I have several domains like that!

Buying a domain name in a hurry is sometimes good, sometimes bad, but often bad.

Why?

Due to a domain name purchase in a hurry or in this situation:

• Not the best domain name, a few days later you think the domain name is nicer, now what are you going to do with the old domain name and buy a new one?
• The purpose behind that domain changes. In the past, your burning desire was to do business in office men's shoes, now you like men's ties, now what is the domain name of men's shoes?

That's why you should relax for a few days or wait until you feel really confident before deciding to buy. Buying as soon as you have an idea is like playing the lottery, the chances of winning the jackpot are extremely rare and the possibility of wasting money is almost certain.