How To Choose The Best Domain Name For Your Site

In all honesty you only need two things to run a website – a domain name and a hosting account. Since we’ve already covered the latter here (see our article on “How to Choose WordPress Friendly Web Hosting” to get caught up), let’s look at the process of buying domain names for gaming affiliates.
While most website hosting plans include a free domain name upon registration, it’s a good idea to buy your domain name separately from your hosting account, as this will prevent you from losing everything should your web hosting provider suddenly disappear. Domain addresses from any registrar can be pointed at any hosting plan through the use of modified domain nameservers (your hosting provider will provide these for you).
When choosing a domain name for your casino affiliate site, there are a few things you’ll want to keep in mind:
Avoid Banned Words
As a casino affiliate, you’re subject to certain restrictions on the specific words that can be used in your domain names. For example, certain affiliate programs may limit trade names or particular branding phrases from being used in your promotional efforts. If you plan to advertise your site using pay-per-click (PPC) ads, you’ll also want to check the country-specific restrictions these programs (Google Adwords, in particular) have in place related to casino affiliate website advertising.
Think Location Specific
Different casino games are popular in different markets, so it’s important to understand both the type of games you plan to promote and the geographic location of your markets before choosing a domain name. For example, if you plan to target the Spanish market, a domain like “www.yabadoo.es” (which uses both Spanish-language casino terminology and a location-specific domain extension) would be a better choice than “www.spanishonlinegambling.com”.
Choose Keyword-Rich Domain Names
When it comes to on-page SEO, one of the biggest benefits you can receive comes from having an exact match domain name. For example, if you were targeting the phrase “football sportsbooks”, the best possible domain for your site would be “www.footballsportsbooks.com”.
Of course, exact match domains are hard to find these days, but you can still take advantage of this bonus by adding modifiers to your keyword in order to create a domain name that still features a high concentration of your target keyword. In this case, you might be able to register either “www.efootballsportsbooks.com” or “www.footballsportsbooksx.com” which would still provide you with a big SEO boost.
Finally, keep in mind that domain names are very cheap to purchase (typically $10-20 each, depending on your registrar), so it’s alright to change your mind once or twice before launching your site. Just be sure to stay consistent once your site is launched – switching the domain name of your site once it’s up and running is an easy way to kill your branding efforts and shoot yourself in the SEO foot.
Do you have any tips for choosing a domain name? Leave your comments in the Domain Name forum!