Domain Name Selection – Choosing a Domain Name For Your Firm’s Website

Choosing a domain name is one of the most important decisions you will make when starting up your law firm’s website. Domain names are considered to be pieces of Intellectual Property and are highly valued. Prices for domain names range from very inexpensive to register to millions of dollars to purchase from a previous owner, if the website name is in high demand.

There are a few important points to consider when choosing the right domain name for your law firm. The most important is that the more relevant website names that are registered to a single firm, the better. The first domain names a law firm should register are its full name (everettlaw.com), a hyphenated name (everett-law.com), and an abbreviated name (elaw.com or evlaw.com).

Then any major practice areas should be considered (estatelaw.com, probatelaw.com) in addition to website names that contain any other keyword phrases (WashingtonLawyer.com, WashingtonProbate.com). If a firm is successful at getting good domain names, success with search engine traffic should follow.

It would probably be too expensive to register a great number of website names, as there is yearly maintenance costs associated with them. 3 to 5 domain names should be appropriate for most firms.

The reason why you need so many domain names is simple, it minimizes competition and that are similar to the name of your firm and its purpose allows you to control the content in those domains, another firm cannot come along and use anything similar to your name. In addition, if a user types something wrong, they will probably still get to where they want to go; your site.

If everettlaw.com, Everett-law.com, elaw.com, evlaw.com, and Washingtonprobate.com all point to the same site, even without the site name in front of them, a user who wanted to contact Everett Law would have a pretty good chance of guessing the right web address. Even though this doesn’t increase search engine ranking, it does discourage competition and help increase traffic, both of which are very desirable effects.

Your firm should consider registering a .org, .net or other gTLD website name only if the available name is short and to the point. Estatelaw.org is far more desirable than Washington-probate-lawyer.org and should be registered immediately

The cost of a domain name varies. A lot of small domain companies register new names for as little as $5 or $10 dollars. It is possible to find a good deal and get consistent service from your domain registrar.

So, get as many domain names as you can buy and will be able to maintain that are relevant or specific to your firm. By doing this you will lessen your competition and increase traffic to your site, both of which mean more business for you.