How to Pick a Good WiFi Related Domain Name for Your Blog at WLAN Book.com

March 26th, 2011

How to Pick a Good WiFi Related Domain Name for Your Blog

by Zaib Kaleem

How to Pick a Good WiFi Related Domain Name for Your Blog

For a new blog one of the more important decisions is selecting a good keyword rich domain domain name. A keyword is word or phrase that users type into search engines when looking for information on a topic. It is always best to use a keyword rich domain for a blog.

New restaurant owners want a lot of foot traffic nearby and the equivalent for websites is search engine traffic. A keyword rich domain will give you a boost in visitors while your blog is young and allow you to dominate the keywords as your blog matures.

I’m not a domain name expert but have purchased enough domains over the years to know which ones not to buy/use. I have also owned some crappy domains like 80211abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.com. I was going to create the world’s best online destination for info about all the 802.11 standards and amendments (never got around to it….plus the domain name sucked).

How to Pick a Keyword Rich Domain Name

My criteria is below.

WiFi, WLAN, Wireless, WiFi Survey, WiFi Blog related domain name
8 characters or less
Only alpha characters
.com required and I want .net and .org domains too

Below is process I would use to search for available keyword rich domain names.

Go to free keyword research tool https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Type in keyword(s) WiFi (you will have to prove you are human and type in correct CAPCHA text)
Submit to get keywords.
Down the keywords to a text file.
Open files in excel or text editor software. Select the keyword column and copy to clipboard.

If you looked up a two word keyword like WiFi Survey then you will need to remove all spaces. Open file in File should open in Notepad in windows. Used Edit -> Replace and replace all spaces with nothing (i.e. put a single space in find field and nothing in replace field) and click replace all.
Now go to http://www.domaintools.com/buy/availability-check/bulk/ to perform a bulk domain look up. Paste keywords with no spaces in search field.
Repeat until you find an available domain and with high monthly search results. I repeated using keywords “WiFi WLAN” together. These two words combined get 27,000 searches a month plus all three domains are available.

A few weeks after starting a blog with this domain name you should be the # 1 result on Google for keyword search WiFi WLAN and most likely get 10,000 or more visitors a month with almost no effort.

Additional Tips on Domain Selection and Blog Branding

If possible make sure you own .com, .net, .org versions of your name. This is very important if you have a name that is not that common because if you have some success you don’t want someone else owning a domain name related to your name and easily out rand you on search engines. Owning your name domain name will allow you to beat Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, etc in Google search results for your name. You always want to control info about yourself online on the first page of Google results. For example, searching for Zaib Kaleem shows that domains / info I control are 8 of the top 10 results on Google.
Avoid domain names with a hypen. This is even more important if the non hyphen version already exists. Most people will not remember the hyphen and you will lose traffic to the non hyphenated version. Also saying your hyphen domain name on a podcast over interview is much more difficult than you would think.
If your plan to blog about a specific topic make sure your domain name contains keywords related to that topic. If you plan to focus on WiFi, WLAN or wireless then include those in your domain name. This type of domain name is known as a “keyword rich” domain name. One of the reasons why I rank # 1 for the keywords WLAN Book is because they are part of my domain name. If you look at Google results for WLAN Book you will see they bold the matching keywords in the results and also in domain name. See below for search for WLAN Book on Google.

This is not just me – many others have confirmed that Google will give more weight to web sites with the search keywords in the domain. I have also tested this theory with other keywords. For example…search for DHCP Appliance. You will notice that the top 4 results are from big commercial companies that make products related to DHCP appliance. Then # 5 is a lame one page website with content from wikipedia…yet it ranks very high for that keyword. Why? because it is a keyword rich domain and has some content related to the topic.
Keep your domain as short as possible. 8 characters or less is ideal. Also, get a US .com domain (and .org and .net). and also the country you are in (co.uk etc). When it comes to domain names shorter is better. Also only include numbers in your domain name if that is required to get a very short domain name or adds keyword value.
Avoid using a .net or .org domain even if your business is an organization or network. Use the .com and if someone else owns the .com for the domain you want find a different one. Again, most people won’t remember that it should be .net or .org and you will lose traffic and brand value.
If you serious about doing business with your domain name make sure to check if the words in the domain are trademarked. Learn from others who had a killer blog at Ciscoblog.com then lost domain name because of trademark issues and had to switch to tekcert.com.

Well, after 5 fun years of running CiscoBlog.com, Cisco “agents” have come. I was contacted by Cisco a couple weeks ago stating that CiscoBlog.com violates their trademark. Being that CiscoBlog.com gets 600,000 hits monthly (isn’t that amazing?!?) I thought I could at least get a box of t-shirts out of the whole deal. Unfortunately, the response went something like, “Mr. Anderson…this is a legal matter. We don’t negotiate.”

So…I have until July 4th to find a new domain name. I guess if I owned Cisco, I wouldn’t want some hoodlum posting at CiscoBlog.com…so I understand the complaint.

…I just wanted a box of t-shirts out of the whole thing… :o)
If you have the budget also secure the plural version of your domain name. I own wlanbooks.com and redirect it to wlanbook.com. Google and other search engines consider the singular and plural version of a domain to be equal in search results and will return your domain in most cases but it is best to own both versions.
Lastly make sure to secure Twitter, YouTube and other popular service accounts related to your brand.