Choosing a decent domain for your bidding directory

This article was written to help you choose a domain for your bidding directory, but can apply to any kind of directory, or even any new website, blog or forum you start up.

Once you’ve made the decision to start a bidding directory, the next thing to do is get a domain. If you already own a general web directory, you may decide its a lot easier to add a sub-domain. The advantages of doing this is any pagerank your main domain has will flow into the subdomain easily. It means no link building is required to get a high PageRank, as it will automatically be given PageRank if linked from your main domain. It also means the traffic your main directory is getting can be leveraged into the subdoain, benefiting the top sites listed there. Sites using a subdomain to good effect for their bidding directory include Blaze Bidding Directory, Ask Bidding Directory, and Voisd Directories Bidding Directory.

Next you have 2 options. To register a new domain, or buy an older aged domain. The advantages of using an old domain mean its more “trusted” so search engines will rank you high quite early on. It means you will get good search engine traffic as the search engines dont believe you are a newly created spam site. The disadvantages mean you are stuck with this domain, and it may be a problem applying a brand to this domain. More about branding is discussed later. Another thing to note is, don’t just get a domain name if it currently has some PageRank on it. It will may make you look like you are trying to make a quick buck if you don’t promote it well. Domains with PageRank will nearly always loose 60-100% of their PageRank as the backlinks to that domain have usually been removed, so there is nothing to support its PageRank any more. I advise getting a new domain. Its like a clean start and you can choose whatever you like, as long as its available to register.

Personally, i would get a different domain set, it just seems more professional than using a subdomain which won’t be promoted as heavily. If you are going to get a main domain, you need to find a cheap registrar. Don’t forget to check out the domain renewal fee- it may seen great that the domain only costs $4 to register, but it may cost $12 every year after that. My favourite registrars are namecheap, godaddy, domainsite and dynadot. They are cheap and offer good control panel options.

Once you have found your registrar, you need to find a domain for your bidding directory. Try and register a good domain, such as a .com or .net. They just seem more professional to many webmasters rather than the cheaper .info domains. There is also a debated theory that google gives more “power” to websites with .com and .net top level domains.

Choosing your domain is vital. Make sure you choose something with a bidding directory releated keyword in it, with something brandable in it too. There are far too many domains out there without a brand placed in it effectively. I chose Zorg as my brand, its easy to remember and nobody else has anything like it. A brandable domain name like dream2bid.com, friendlydirectories.com, used for a bidding directory can work well. It helps people distinguish your site from the rest. Try and do what i did, get a brand name in there, and also a keyword in there. These types of domains are the best. Don’t worry about your brand, if it sounds silly so do many others. 50 years ago people would have thought yahoo and google sounded daft.

Once your domain is chosen, and is available, register it. If you have the funds at the time, register it for many years to make it your own, and to ensure it will never expire any time soon. make sure you are happy with your domain. Its part of your brand now. Link building, theme design, banner design, promotion and branding will all depend on your domain name.

Hope this helps you when choosing yourself a new domain.

~Mike

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

This entry was posted on Friday, August 10th, 2007 at 1:40 pm and is filed under phpLB Resources & Articles, Running a Bidding Directory. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.