Many Names, One Person

Don't play the name game or you could end up losing! Regardless of whether you are a large corporation or a small business owner, you should try to buy multiple domain names to protect the investment of your current site.

Most people will only purchase their domain name in a single extension (.com, .org, .net, etc.). Meanwhile, some unscrupulous folks may just snap up the remaining extensions of the website name and try to profit from someone else's hard work. Do you really want someone else to gain usage of your well-thought out, easy-to-remember name? Of course not!

*Owning several iterations of your current website is the least you can do to protect your domain name.

Have You Met My Friend, Mr. Roget?

Unavailable, occupied, engaged…
If domain name availability for a domain you want is, well, unavailable, you will have no choice but to try other variants of the name.

Almost every domain name registration service offers name suggestions based on your keywords of your business. For example, while the name "GreatComputers.Com" might be unavailable, a domain name suggestion service might come back with awesomecomputers.com, great-computers.com and other similar domain names or the same domain is various extensions.

*Experiment with such tools until you find the domain name that fits you best (or try looking in the thesaurus).

Make Money While You Park

It is actually very quick and easy to monetize parked domains, but don't expect grand riches. Some services will choose the genre that your domain name falls into and target their keyword-based search results to your site. In this type of traffic monetization, you show someone else's content and get paid on every click through.

*Unless you have a top-tier domain name you won't make tons—but don't let that stop you. It's better to make a little money than to have a dead domain that does nothing!

Free Domain Names, With Purchase.

Don't expect to get something for nothing! With web host services, it is fairly common for a hosting service to give away a free Domain Name if you agree to a service contract. But, like for most things, there's always a cost.

At minimum, you can expect to sign up for a full year of service with the web hosting service to receive your free domain registration. Is this worth it to you? Is the company a good company or are you only interested in the deal? Be careful and do your homework before biting at a deal like this.

What's in a Name?

The long or short of it is that your domain name doesn't have to be short. A common misconception when deciding on an available domain name is that brevity is key. Guess what, that's not always the case. Did you know that your domain name can be up to 67 characters long?

The best domain name is one that people can easily commit to memory. So, if your company name is Dynamite Wacky Widgets and Goofy Gadgets, instead of opting to name the domain something obscure like DWWGG.com why not go all out and name it DynamiteWackyWidgetsAndGoofyGadgets.com? The actual name is probably going to be a lot more memorable.

Save Time with a Single Stop

Don't try to juggle, this isn't the circus—or it doesn't have to be, rather. For ease of use, it is recommended to find domain name services that consolidate your needs. If you choose one service to handle your domain parking and another to handle your email forwarding, you are doubling your level of work. Keeping track of a multitude of services, all being provided by different companies, is a lot of work that you don't need to take on.

*Most domain registrar parking services will offer a consolidated administration interface.

Support is Just a Forum Away

Know the news! Weblogs and Forums are a great source of domain news. As new services come online, or people discover good toolsets that can help pinpoint domain names, you'll see discussion threads pop up online.

Often, domain name forums will offer a digest of some sort that can be received as a domain name newsletter. Visit www.domainstate.com for an example of a good domain news source.