Picking a Domain Name

Picking a domain name is like getting married. You are going to have to stick with it till the bitter end. People that use your site will come to know it by the domain name. Repeat visitors will often simply type in the domain name to get to the site, better known as “type in traffic”. As an example, do you search for “Amazon” when you want to buy a book or do simply type in amazon.com? If Amazon were to change its domain name to Desert, there would be a lot of confusion. The same goes with your domain. Once you pick something, stick with it.

If you said Google.com, which is the obvious answer, you would in fact be wrong, and here's why... Ignore Google.com the "brand" for a moment, and think of "Google" as a keyword. Repeat after me, when you own the domain name, you own the keyword.

I have several domains like Google.com, all cute, super fun-to-say, and memorable, but with no real definition. None get more than a few visitors a month - accidental, random traffic, at best. And since "Google" doesn't historically mean anything, there's almost no way to monetize a name like the without millions and millions of dollars worth of branding, and years of reputation building. At best, a domain like Google com - but with no existing name recognition - might earn a few dollars a year in click revenue and sell for a few thousand at auction.

But what if you owned CellPhones.com? How many visitors would you get then, and what might they be looking for? Welcome to the wonderful world of type-in traffic, also known as direct navigation. Based on established type-in click-through metrics for the domain industry, and my own personal experience, a domain like CellPhones.com probably gets between 3000 and 5000 type-in visitors a day or about 125,000 visitors a month.