One of the issues that often comes up when creating more than a handful of niche focussed websites is the cost of domain names. At $10 per domain name per year, a group of 30 websites with exact match domains will cost $300 per year in domain registration fees.
My view is that if any one website can’t cover it’s annual domain name and hosting fees, then you should dump that site and create another site that can. However, I have had numerous emails from people who would rather have fewer, more generic domains, than lots of exact match domain names.
The next question is usually along the lines of “what domain name should I register – aren’t all the good generic domain names already taken?”
Here is an extract of a forum post asking this exact question:
“Person like me who is not having a good income can’t invest in many domain names as they unnecessarily burden the amount on us. So what should one like me should do? Most of the times broad keyword domains are already purchased by some one else and buying those websites is not possible because they cost $1000. What should we do?”
Here is my answer:
There are plenty of good generic domains available for any topic. As an example, let’s look for domains relating to “HDTV”.
Method 1:
Go to the “Search Suggest” tool at:
http://imcheatsheets.com/memberarea/dnt/index.php
When I type in “hdtv” it days that “hdtvresolution.net” is available. There’s 1 good domain name.
Method 2:
Go to http://godaddy.com and type “hdtv” into the domain name search box.
It will tell you that hdtv.com, net & org are taken, but underneath will be some suggested domain names that are available.
One of them is “hdtv-cheap.com”.
Now I don’t really like hyphenated domain names, but “cheaphdtv” looks like an interesting idea to work with.
Go back to Godaddy.com and type “cheaphdtv” into the domain name search box.
It will say that cheaphdtv.com, net & org are taken, but it offers other suggestions that are not taken, including:
newcheaphdtv.com, cheaphdtvblog.com, findcheaphdtv.com
There’s 3 more good domain names.
Method 3:
Go to http://nameboy.com, type “hdtv” into the “Primary Word:” field, then click the “Go Nameboy Go” button.
It shows heaps of available domain names, including:
hdtvdaily.net, hdtvedition.com, insiderhdtv.com
Thats 3 more.
Method 4:
Now I am on a roll, being inspired by some of the ideas from the first 3 methods, and ideas are just popping into my head. A quick availability check at godaddy.com reveals:
hdtvinsider.net – available
hdtvadviser.net – available
hdtvadvice.org – available
Including these 3, that’s 10 good domains relating to HDTV that are available. And it only took me about 10 minutes to find them.
Pick a topic and try these methods and I dare you NOT to find a suitable domain name!
I register all my domain names with MONIKER. The prices are good, the interface is very clean and easy to use, and they don’t try and upsell you with endless add-ons, when all you want is a domain name.