How to Make a Decision on Choosing a Free or Paid Website

There are a number of really good reasons as to WHY you should own your own domain name:

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

1. o If you ever change your web host, your domain name goes with
   you. Your regular visitors or customers who knew your site
   name as www.fishinglureearrings.com (for example) would not
   have to be informed about a change of URL to
   www.fishinglurejewelry.com. They would simply type your
   domain name and be redirected to your new site location on the
   web This is important because the last thing you want to do is
   redo all of your search engine optimization all over again if you
   ever have to move your site! Also don't think that having to
   move your site won't one day happen to you. Quite often
   owners of a new website don't ever plan on it becoming
   successful and having to forgo small bandwidth for a larger
   option.
   
   o If you are a business, a domain name gives you credibility. It is
   part of your identity and your branding Few people would be
   willing to do business with a company with a dubious URL like
   http://www.reallycheaphosting.com/feathers-earringlure
   /108985/htm. It is simply too long and complicated. A page URL
   like this is also too long for the search engine submission
   services that might truncate the end of it to make it fit. This will
   lead visitors to your site to reallycheaphosting.com (a fictional
   company) or a 404 page of some kind.
   
   o If you get a domain name that describes your company's
   business or name, people can remember the name easily and
   can return to your site without having to look it up or search all
   over the Internet. In fact, if you get a good name that describe
   your product or service, you might even get people who were
   trying their luck by typing your product" in their browser. A good
   example would be a site called "vacuums.com" Of course that
   name is probably taken which is where cleverness either to do
   with rhyme or being really specific about your niche might come
   in handy.
   
   o If you want to attract sponsor, link partners or advertisers for
   your web site, owning your own domain name gives your web
   site credibility and respectability. The fact that you have paid for
   your domain name lets them (and the search engines) know
   that you are serious. The reason you need all of this credibility
   is because the search engines are more likely to place sites
   that have a lot of links in them higher on their search engine
   pages then ones that are only indexed with just a couple of
   sites.
2. If it's possible it's a great idea to make your domain name identical to
   your web site name. If you have ever tried to do this, you probably
   know by now that just about every phrase and product name in the
   world is already registered as a domain name. Still, at the very try to
   register a domain that at least closely mimics the web site you are
   creating.
   
   For instance, lets just say you want to open an online gem jewelry
   store and call it gemjewelry.com. Alas, you will see that domain is
   aken and some one else on a site called whosit.com is offering it for
   sale for one thousand dollars. Whosit.com is a search engine that
   allows you to find out who owns what domain name and how much
   hey want to charge you to own it. However you do see that the
   gemjewelry.net is available to buy for $10 so you purchase that and
   newagebooks.net becomes the name of your site.
3. Naming a site after its domain name is important because it is part of
   what marketers call branding. If your web site name is also part of
   your URL, your customers will automatically know where to go and
   what to type into a search engine to find you.
   Still it might be better to have a .com name that is available such as
   symbolicgems.com then gemjewelry.net. This is because if a
   customer types an important key word phrase such as "gem jewelry"
   nto a Google search box chances are that they will end up at the web
   site that has the .com on its tail. Also research shows that people
   end to remember a .com name more then they would ever remember
   a .net name (or any of the other popular URL suffixes such as .net,
   info or .biz.)
   
   In the competitive world of the Internet, where people automatically
   turn to the Web for information, it pays to have a domain name that
   reflects your site or business. However you might have to be
   prepared to pay for exactly the right domain name so that your
   business is easy for your customers to find. Recall that the number of
   times your link is clicked on because your URL name is a good match
   for your product, the faster and higher your domain name will rise in
   the search engine page rankings.
   
   Of course if you are starting your business on a shoestring you might
   find yourself doing this entire web site name process backwards. It
   can be cheaper to obtain a domain first and then name your web site
   or business after the domain name that you managed to acquire. For
   instance, if all the good .com names were already taken for a site you
   wanted to name healthyshoes.com and all that you could get is
   healthyshoes.net then you might want to consider naming your entire
   business HealthyShoes.Net.
   
   The reason people do this is exactly because they couldn't get that
   perfect domain name. However there is no business name that is
   more perfectly optimized then one that is named exactly as the URL
   displays itself on the screen, as would be the case with
   HealthyShoes.Net. This is much better then naming it something
   more vague such as PhysicallyCorrectShoes.Com. However
   sometimes a memorable name that does not have it's .com taken is
   less then one creative degree away from the name that you originally
   wanted for your site.
   
   For instance in the case of the unavailable healthyshoes.net, a quick
   search with keyword inventory tools might reveal that people don't
   type in
4. Domain names can be of any length up to 67 characters. You don't
   have to settle for an obscure acronym for a domain name like
   psychicchat.info when what you mean is
   spiritualrsingleschatroom.com.
   
   The jury is still out on whether a long or short domain name is better.
   Some marketing experts argue that shorter domain names are easier
   to remember, easier to type and have less spelling errors: for
   example, "bewitched.com" is easier to remember and less prone to
   typos than "samanthastevens.com" (which can also be spelled
   stephens)
   
   Whether long or short it is of course always a good idea to relate the
   domain name to a keyword that is relevant to the service you provide.
   This means doing a bit of keyword research on the kind of lingo or
   slang that your potential customers might use. For instance if you are
   planning to do a website about Yorkshire Terriers you might do better
   with yorkies.com (yorkies being a common search term) rather than
   yorkshireterriers.com (as it is longer and terriers is a commonly
   misspelled word.)
   
   Some experts say that a longer domain name is usually easier on the
   human memory - for example, "grn.com" is a sequence of unrelated
   letters that is difficult to remember and type correctly, whereas if we
   expand it to its long form "getrichnow. com", clients are more likely to
   remember the domain name.
   
   However if you get an acronym that makes sense by creating another
   phrase or word you have probably hit SEO gold. A good example of a
   clever acronym is www.madd.com (Mothers Against Drunk Driving).
   
   As a rule of thumb - if it is a shorter name make sure it is to the point
   and meaningful. If it is longer than two words then make sure it is a
   memorable phrase and preferably a combination of keywords created
   from terms that people look for when they search for your type of
   service or product online.