How to Find The Perfect New Domain for Your Niche Site

John // Blogging

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February 12  

Finding a great domain for your new niche site, especially if itÂ’s gonna be an authority niche site, can be thrilling, stressful and joyful at the same time.

I get so happy when I find a good domain, but man, I can get so stressed and frustrated if I donÂ’t find anything good within a few hours.

Over time I have learned a few tricks which I use every time I need to find a perfect domain for my new websites. Today I am sharing all those tricks with you.

Even with this how to find a great domain tutorial, it may take some time to find a good domain. And other times youÂ’ll find amazing domain within 15 minutes. There are no exact rules, just patience and a few cool tricks.

So, let’s get started…

In this domain finding guide you will learn:

  • What makes a domain name good or bad
  • Where should you buy your domains
  • How to use Google to find great domain ideas
  • How to use competitors to find great domain names
  • and more!

For easier use here’s a table of contents so that you can skip straight to the parts that interests you the most.

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Where to register / buy your new domain

If you have asked me this questions several months ago I would recommend that you buy your domains at GoDaddy without a question.

Because GoDaddy had many coupon codes floating around on the web, which you could use to buy your domain for as cheap as $1, and even save money on renewals.

But, things have changed and it is nearly impossible to find working $1 coupon codes for GoDaddy.

So my new favorite domain provider is Name Cheap. They too have some discount coupons, just not that big (mostly just $1 cheaper).

Still, they offer free WhoIs protection for the first year (later about $2.50 per year) which is awesome.

Their domain availability checker is also way better and faster compared to GoDaddy, you donÂ’t even need to press enter, it loads and show domain availability instantly.

What makes a domain name good or bad

I could write a whole article just about this topic, but letÂ’s keep it simple.

Good domain name:

  • Short
  • Memorable / catchy
  • Brandable
  • Top level domain – .com
  • Without hyphens
  • Can have 1 keyword in it but that shouldnÂ’t be whole domain

Bad domain name:

  • Long (over 15 characters)
  • Hard to pronounce
  • Hard to remember
  • Not .com
  • Has hyphens
  • Keyword stuffed (exact match domain)
  • Contains trademarks (not owned)

You can read more about domains and correlation with SEO on Moz.com.

Here are few examples of good and bad domain names.

Good domain examples:

  • xMarketing.com (short and catchy)
  • RavenThemes.com (brandable)
  • FitProGuide.com (catchy)

Bad domain examples:

  • FacebookMarketing.info (trademark infrigiment + .info)
  • RavenThemesAndTemplates.com (keyword stuffing + too long)
  • How-To-Lose-Weight.com (exact match keywords, hyphens + not brandable)

Now you know the basic rules and difference between good and bad domains. LetÂ’s see how to find them.

Best tool for finding great domains – your mind

Like with everything else you already have the most powerful tool – your brain.

So use it and try a few domain names that come first to your mind. Those are the ones you already like (since you thought of them yourself) and you might just get lucky and actually grab an available one.

But donÂ’t stress about it too much, if you canÂ’t find anything available within 15 minutes move on.

Try again the next day, or just wait until it ‘hits’ you.

Like while you are watching a movie, or doing shopping for groceries you might see something that will give you some domain idea, or some cool / interesting / funny word you might use in your new domain.

You donÂ’t have to rely on this tactic, cause it takes time. If you need a great new domain fast keep reading this article, there are better ways to find them.

Domain names generators

NameMesh

This is often my first choice and I bet itÂ’s a first choice for many of you.

Unfortunately, I donÂ’t think I ever found a good (available) domain from these domain names generators. I guess I am too picky or just didnÂ’t have luck.

Maybe youÂ’ll do better.

HereÂ’s a list of domain names generators. Take some time and play with them, you never know, they might give you something good.

These are just a few you can try. If you go to Google and search for ‘domain name generator’ you will find even more.

*Fun fact: I registered my blogÂ’s name Income Mesh because of NameMesh.com domain name generatorÂ’s name.

Thesaurus

Thesaurus

Thesaurus is a God-send for domain name research. Really, this is by far my favorite tool when I want to register a new domain name.

For those of you not familiar with Thesaurus, itÂ’s an online tools which gives you a list of synonyms and antonyms for any word you type in.

HereÂ’s how Thesaurus can become handy when you do domain name research.

For example, you want to register a domain called FitnessGuide.com but you realize that domain is already registered.

What you can do now is go to Thesaurus.com and type word ‘guide’ in it to see what are the synonyms of that word (you don’t want to change the word ‘fitness’ because it’s a good keyword).

And now you have a list of ‘guide’ synonyms you can use in your domain, like:

  • mentor
  • teacher
  • captain
  • guru
  • genie
  • …etc

See how easy and fun can that be 🙂

3-Letter words + Keyword

This is fun to do if you have no idea how should your domain be named.

Basically you just put 3-letter word before or after your main word (keyword).

Let’s say your main keyword is ‘diet’, your domains could be something like:

  • DietWoo.com
  • YayDiet.com
  • DietZoo.com
  • HeyDiet.com
  • AndDiet.com
  • DietSpy.com
  • etc. (or EtcDiet.com haha)

Anyway, I have a list of over 600 three letter words waiting just for you. Besides that IÂ’ve included few more bonuses.

To get the list and create a fun and short domain for your business all you have to do is click on one of the share buttons below and it will automatically unlock and be ready for download.

[sociallocker id=”2889″]

=>>> Click here to download 3 letters words (plus bonuses) .zip pack. <===

[/sociallocker]

 

Research the niche & products you plan to sell

I think many of you forget about this little gem.

You forget that someone out there already did all the hard work for you. They have a product, they have a website and some successful niche up and going. Well guess what, those products, product pages, websites and niches have thousands of keywords in them.

You wanna go into some niche and make money out if it? Do your research first.

You wanna grab some awesome domain for that niche? Do you research first.

For example, letÂ’s say I want to go into diet / weight loss niche, hereÂ’s one product (among others) which I plan to promote:

So, the main keyword for my future domain name could be diet, fat loss or something similar. But I need some extra word I can use with my main keyword, or I can even get completely new domain ideas out of it.

IÂ’ll go and visit that sales page and extract most interesting keywords out of it. In this case:

  • foolproof
  • melt
  • reduction
  • decreased
  • waistline
  • muscle tone
  • faster
  • metabolism
  • healthier
  • health benefits
  • manual
  • body fat
  • lean body
  • rapid weight loss
  • body type
  • method
  • results
  • program
  • trainer
  • …and so onÂ…

With this set of keywords I can create a new domain within seconds like:

  • LeanBodyManual.com – AVAILABLE
  • MuscleToneProgram.com – AVAILABLE
  • BodyFatMelt.com – AVAILABLE
  • etc etc

Those domains above were available at the time of writing this.

Ok maybe they are not the best domains in world, but combine it with Thesaurus, do some more research, or combine it with some of my other techniques in this article and youÂ’ll make something good out of it for sure.

Google competitors and non-competitors

This one is somewhat related to my previous tip, but again, so often overlooked when doing domain name research.

So hereÂ’s what you need to do.

After you decide what niche you want to get into (letÂ’s stick with weight loss in examples), you go and research your competitors.

You type in “how to lose weight” in Google (this is just an example), and here are some of interesting domains that popped out:

  • DietDoctor.com
  • AuthorityNutrion.com
  • MensFitness.com
  • RunnersWorld.com
  • LiveStrong.com
  • MuscleAndFitness.com
  • Shape.com
  • Intense-Workout.com
  • FitDay.com
  • …and so onÂ…

Bold words in the above domains are the words you should pay attention to.

Now first pick your main word, letÂ’s say itÂ’s diet.

We can see that our first domain DietDoctor.com is obviously taken, but letÂ’s see how it goes with other bold words.

  • MuscleAndDiet.com – AVAILABLE

Again, maybe not the best domain but hey, I found it within 5 minutes.

If you invest a bit more time you can find something even better.

LetÂ’s think out of a box for a secondÂ…

Go and Google something completely unrelated to your niche, still somewhat popular. Like…dresses!

If you type in Google “black dress” you’ll get some interesting domains like:

  • MissGuided.co.uk
  • SimplyDresses.com
  • Unique-Vintage.com
  • TheUniformProject.com
  • Glamorous.com
  • MaxStudio.com
  • BusinessInsider.com
  • InStyle.com
  • HelloMollyFashion.com

Pay attention on the bold words and letÂ’s see can we find a domain name by connecting our words with our main keyword – diet.

The only available one was:

  • GuidedDiet.com – AVAILABLE

Probably not the best pick, but hey, it’s available 🙂

You know the drill now, just Google everything, see what others are doing and youÂ’ll find something.

It doesn’t matter if some clothing store has a domain ClothingHeaven.com and you use the word ‘heaven’ to register a domain DietHeaven.com, no one will care nor confuse your two brands.

Domains for sale on auctions and expired domain

You can find good domains on domain auctions (at GoDaddy), or at NameCheapÂ’s domain marketplace, and for cheap.

Just be careful what you are buying. Some domain names may be penalized by Google, some of them have awful backlinks pointing to them and stuff like that.

ItÂ’s a whole different topic which I will cover in another article.

If you are interested you can also check (subscribe) on JustDropped.com newsletter where you will get notified about just expired domain names.

Wrapping it up

Finding a good domain name doesnÂ’t have to hard. ItÂ’s actually quite easy and fun if you know what you are doing and if you have the right tools.

How do you find your domain names?

Share your secrets in the comments below, I won’t tell anyone, promise 🙂

About the Author

John Whitford is an entrepreneur who has built over 12 profitable online blogs and businesses. He's also the founder of Unbeatable Tech, a data-driven digital marketing company that specializes in sales funnel implementation for both his own businesses and clients alike. John loves to be a beach bum while brainstorming new ideas for marketing strategies, but he's always excited to take on another project!

John

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