Thread: Choosing a domain name

I need to choose a domain name for my website. Anjela.com is already taken. I'm curious--of the below, what might be best to go with?

anjeladancer.com
anjeladances.com
anjelabellydance.com
anjelabellydancer.com
bellydanceanjela.com
bellydanceranjela.com

Alternately, anjela.biz is available. I don't know if a ".biz" domain is perceived less favorably than a ".com" domain, though.

Or something else? I'd love to hear suggestions. It seems to me like adding hypens in the domain name could be potentially confusing to people, so I'd probably like to avoid that. No "anjelaraks", either--the word "raks" doesn't mean anything to the GP, so I'm not interested in causing any confusion there, either.

Thanks, all!

For me, I own both mahsati-janan.com and mahsati.com, but I had to wait and watch for Mahsati to become available. I don't know who had it, but it wasn't available for me for a couple of years.

I like anjeladances.com and would add to the listof options:

anjelabelly.com
anjeladance.com
dancebyanjela.com
anjeladancearts.com

There are probably lots of other options. I tend to prefer as few letters as possible to make typing/remembering easier. I do like having your name as the main part of the address. It just makes it easier for forgetful folks like me to remember how to find you!

Another option is going with one of the other extensions like .net, .org, .biz, .us. I have a .org for my dance troupe/dance collective, but am not sure how well people would remember it for an individual site.

Maybe you could put the abbreviation for your state in your domain name? Definitely helps with search engine rankings, which is important if you're working in a very saturated market. I was going to be some variation of carraranourct, but God only knows if I'll be in Connecticut or in Florida in 3 months.

I went for EastCoastShimmy.com because it's catchy, a little tongue-in-cheek, and I don't trust that the general public is competent to spell Carrara Nour, or most BD stage names, for that matter.

For you, I personally like anjelabellydance. It's simple, to the point, and says both your name and what you do.

I have two websites where the URL's are exactly what Lisa says - my name and what I do. It's easy for the clients to remember. Tahira belly dancer or Nancie Shuman Executive Coach.

What has helped with the search engines is that I call myself Tahira of Los Angeles. If you put that all over your site, trust me, when people google Belly dancer Los Angeles, your name comes up!

{{{{HUGS}}}

Originally Posted by nimah

I need to choose a domain name for my website. Anjela.com is already taken. I'm curious--of the below, what might be best to go with?

anjeladancer.com
anjeladances.com
anjelabellydance.com
anjelabellydancer.com
bellydanceanjela.com
bellydanceranjela.com

Alternately, anjela.biz is available. I don't know if a ".biz" domain is perceived less favorably than a ".com" domain, though.

Or something else? I'd love to hear suggestions. It seems to me like adding hypens in the domain name could be potentially confusing to people, so I'd probably like to avoid that. No "anjelaraks", either--the word "raks" doesn't mean anything to the GP, so I'm not interested in causing any confusion there, either.

Thanks, all!

I would have went with something like bellydancerminneapolis.com

Originally Posted by HubicRuzz

I would have went with something like bellydancerminneapolis.com

Depending on your community this can get you a lot more drama than you want and you'll have to abandon it if you ever move. I always recommend that if you use a place name to use your dance name with it for that reason. Some dancers have the generic belly dance and place name website and it works, but I think it is pretty community specific - just one more thing to think about.

anjelabellydance.com

I like that one

Originally Posted by mahsati

Depending on your community this can get you a lot more drama than you want and you'll have to abandon it if you ever move. I always recommend that if you use a place name to use your dance name with it for that reason. Some dancers have the generic belly dance and place name website and it works, but I think it is pretty community specific - just one more thing to think about.

The next best thing would be to put "Minneapolis Belly Dancer" or something similar in the blue HTML tag that pops up at the top of your site. Serves pretty much the same purpose, from what I understand. Sounds basic, but lots of people don't take advantage of the blue tag.

So stupid to think that a good search engine optimization move could potentially cause drama, but I do agree that this could be limiting if you plan to move any time soon. If not, I'd tell you to have at it!

Originally Posted by SatinWorship19

The next best thing would be to put "Minneapolis Belly Dancer" or something similar in the blue HTML tag that pops up at the top of your site. Serves pretty much the same purpose, from what I understand. Sounds basic, but lots of people don't take advantage of the blue tag.

So stupid to think that a good search engine optimization move could potentially cause drama, but I do agree that this could be limiting if you plan to move any time soon. If not, I'd tell you to have at it!

Oh, I don't plan to go anywhere! I've moved away from and then back to Minnesota three times in my life, and now I'm staying put for good. There really is no place like home!

My boyfriend is a web nerd and says that the domain name itself doesn't have a whole lot of influence on where the site turns up on Google searches, and that that is more content-driven. I'm supplying the content, and leaving the rest up to him. :Abiggrin:

My thoughts have always been to choose a domain that is simple, easy to guess, easy to spell, and contains a keyword phrase (if possible).

Originally Posted by nimah

My boyfriend is a web nerd and says that the domain name itself doesn't have a whole lot of influence on where the site turns up on Google searches, and that that is more content-driven.

Ok, but you know I work as a search engine optimizer. From my experience, having the keywords you want to target is a big influence.

I go for anjelabellydance.com myself. Should keep it as simple as possible so someone could remember it even if they lose your card or info and nothing that will send them to the wrong place frustrated b/c they use an S instead of an R.

Good call on avoiding hyphens and all that if possible.

Originally Posted by HubicRuzz

Ok, but you know I work as a search engine optimizer. From my experience, having the keywords you want to target is a big influence.

I agree with this. It's the the whole equation, but it's part of it. Might as well give yourself as much of an edge as possible.

you may want to grab one quickly. There are web domain name crawlers out there that will pick up available domain names if they are showing up in search engines.

Bhuz listings to show up in search engines. Just giving a warning...

On another note - I have found that people find dance names hard to remember.

Making it something general like bellydancerminneapolis is easy to remember.

mine is novabellydance.com

NOVA is a common term used here for Northern Virginia

People seem to remember it easier.