Before buying any available domain name that is slightly related to your site you best read this short beginners guide to domain names with advice, explanations and helpful tips.
What Is A Domain Name
When the internet was being developed for military reasons the designers used IP addresses to navigate through the different sites. An IP address will look like 10.138.194.56. Obviously once the internet was gaining popularity commercially it would be difficult for the average user to navigate easily using just IP addresses. So they created a mask for the IP addresses in the form of a text name. This name is now commonly referred to as a domain name.
.com, .tv, .org, what the?
So you get the name part but what is with those weird words at the end? Well at the end of a domain name is the domain extension. Traditionally these extensions tell you what type of website it is. There are dozens of different types of extensions but here is a small list to help you navigate. .com is for a company. It is the most common and easiest to remember. .com.au is the same but au designates that the site is from Australia or the company is based in Australia. There are heaps of different country codes like uk (united kingdom), ca (Canada), us (united states). .org organisations. Use to be for non-profit organizations. I believe it still is but lately I have seen a few .orgs whose primary existence is for profit. .gov for government agencies only. .edu for education departments only. .net .info .ws .tv are some other common domain extensions. They were originally set up for individual purposes but lately they have blurred to be part of the commercially available domain extensions.
How much is a domain name?
Domain name registration is relatively inexpensive; however purchasing old domains can set you back but ill cover that later. Here is a list of the standard prices for domains name. This is just a guide from planetdomain, so you can see whether or not you are paying too much.

Domain Name Trading
Domain Name trading was a booming business during the technology bubble. Like many markets booming during that period, domain trading has come under control again. Basically people were registering domain names and reselling them for an inflated price. This occurred because at the time people were afraid that the internet would run out of good domain names (which it has in a way) and big companies were trying to secure short, easy to remember domains. Whilst this still occurs most big companies would have a domain name now and many different extensions are becoming popular so it isn’t necessary to buy an expensive .com name. More recently trading refers to aged domains with inbound links that help search engine optimization. People are looking for a head start so they purchase domains that search engines are aware of to save them some work down the line. Generally though domains play less importance and you shouldn’t need to pay more than a registration price for a good relevant domain name.
What should I call my site?
Well now where down to the important part of the story. What do you call your site? Here are a few rules of thumb which if followed will give you a suitable domain.
·  If you are a company put your company name in the domain. E.g Bobs Building Company should be www.bobsbuildingcompany.com or if possible www.bbc.com as it is smaller, easier to remember, easier to type and completely relevant. You should never have www.greatestbuildingcompanyinunitedstates.com as customers will have a hard time finding you and also think they have been directed to the wrong page when your company has a different name to the domain.
·  Use most relevant domain extension. For most people that is a .com name. If no relevant .coms are available .net is also well liked. At this stage newer extensions like .info and .ws are not widely accepted and people tend to stick with what they know.
·  If you work exclusively in one country use that countries extension. This helps in country specific searches and makes you seem more local and approachable for customers.
·  Stay away from characters. Slashes, hyphens etc even if they are accepted when you register the domain, they make your site look cheap and are disliked by many web users.
·  Short is sweet. The shorter the domain the easier to remember and recognise. This does not mean you should ruin a proper domain name just to make it small. Using our example from above Bobs Building Company could be bobbuildcomp.com, which may be shorter but makes no sense to web users.
SEO domain name Information
Search engines use hundreds of different aspects of a website to decide how to rank relevant sites. Domain names are no different (no matter what some people say). So here are a few tips so your domain doesn’t hurt your rankings and may even help it
·  Use keywords in the domain name
·  Keywords should be closest to the start of the domain.
·  Domains should be as small as possible with only your keywords. If your keywords are great bikes the domain www.greatbikes.com is much better than www.greatbikesandbikeaccessories.com
So now you have tools and knowledge to pick a useful, relevant domain name. Hopefully you wont make the same silly mistakes many beginners made when choosing their domain name.

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