Everyone likes a good brand name and picking an excellent domain name for your affiliate marketing business is exactly the same as creating a brand. Coining a catchy name might yield various benefits in the long term frame. In this post I will share few great tips for coming up with a superb domain name for yourself, adding some great existing brand name examples.
A good domain name for affiliate marketing purposes should sound like a brand, be catchy, easy to memorize, self-explanatory and relatively short. Domain names should have less than 16 characters or 2-3 words, otherwise they are prone to be misspelled and easily forgettable.
The best and the most memorable brand names are those which do not need any explanation. A good brand name is very often self-explanatory and forecasts the niche they are involved in.
What comes to your mind when you hear BeardBrand.com? Obviously it is about beards and products for men.
How about LegendaryMarketer.com? Their content is about becoming a highly successful Internet marketer. They cover all sub-niches related to digital and affiliate marketing.
MyFitnessPal.com? They offer products and services related to health like fitness and calorie trackers.
While brainstorming through your ideas, try to think of using a word or a phrase that’s self-explanatory.
Can I Use My Own Name As The Domain?
Creating a brand of your first and last name is a viable option. Using personal names is a great way to build an authority website and strengthen your own personal brand. It is a strong method for building relationship with your audience as soon as they land on your website.
There’s an old saying that people buy people, which in simple words it means that people buy things from people they know, like and trust. Pick your first and last name, add a .com and you’ve set. Many people are starting from a personal brand standpoint. If you like the idea then go for it. Just like I did with this blog – TommyDrozd.com.
Additionally, with the recent EAT update from Google, it’s obvious that they favor brands that show expertise, authority and trustworthiness. Nowadays it is a very important factor that helps to rank faster in search engines.
I have decided to go this way because I want to build a better brand around my name and also the niche I’m focusing on is rather broad and covers different aspects of digital marketing whatsoever. Creating a brand around your expertise and skills help you gain authority and trust. Those are the two crucial aspects if you wish to work in the affiliate marketing niche and actually make a living.
Which Domain Extension Should I Pick?
This is the most important step because it will last for years until you will decide to change your domain name – and moving domain names is often a problematic process.
You should always pick a dot com which is one of the three Top-Level-Domains. The dot coms are established as the industry standard and were created to symbolize commercial usage. The other two are .org and .net but sound less authoritative.
The domain .net is an abbreviation from network and .org is made out of organization.
When your aim is to build a global presence, you should avoid regional domains at all costs. Even those like dot ca or dot uk might slightly hurt your SEO and discoverability because those imply that your business activity is somewhat limited. My advice is to always pick a global and established extension.
Are Trends In Your Domain Name A Good Thing?
When deciding on a name for a domain, it is advisable to avoid using trends as keywords at all costs. Trends become irrelevant quite fast and you might end up with a superannuated domain or brand name.
If you really want to jump on the ‘trend train’ and create content, I would strongly recommend to broaden your domain name which I will cover in the next paragraph.
Remember fidget spinners? They are long obsolete. Running a “SpinnerMaster dot com” website would successfully block you from expanding to other similar hobbies. And yes, it is possible to move your website and change domain names but these kind of operations are risky. Some websites do well afterwards but some websites never get back up, meaning they can lose their traffic and growth potential.
Should I Choose A More Broad Name Instead Of Nicheing Down?
A couple years from now you will most likely want to scale and expand your field of expertise. It is always better to broaden your domain name than to niche down deep into the rabbit hole and get yourself stuck. You can easily avoid that issue by broadening your niche a bit further. For example, instead of doing a website about “tools for plumbers”, it would be much better to write about tools in general. After covering most of the topics that would be useful for people interested in tools that would plumbers use, you might want to start a series of posts covering all things related to “tools for woodworking”, or “tools for embroidery” and so on.
How To claim a Domain Name For Affiliate Marketing?
In order to choose a domain name for your website you need to go to a hosting provider like Bluehost or GoDaddy. You will be able to check if a domain name you want to buy is available for purchase.
After getting your new domain, if you already own a hosting and got a website, you will need to change your websites’ DNS. If you haven’t already got a website, most hosting providers offer a free domain name upon purchasing a hosting for launching a website. In this case, it should already be automatically configured for you.
Can I Use Brand Names In My Domain?
You can not use other brand names in your domain name unless you own them. Using other brand names can violate copyright laws and even cause legal issues.
It is always better to use a more generic domain like ‘supercheapphones.com’ rather than making up something like ‘cheapapplephones.com’. The second option would limit you and your website only to write about Apples’ phones and make it difficult to broaden your content onto other brands. Eventually, your website might get taken down due to copyright issues. Please consider this when brainstorming your new brand name.
