Nine Major Factors To Consider Before Purchasing a Domain Name

I am writing this article for the sake of potential bloggers whom are coming into the blogosphere. most of them don't know that before buying a domain name some things must be put into consideration and today i have decided to write an article on major factors to consider when purchasing a domain name.
for the
sake of those who will ask, what is a domain? A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative authority or control within the internet.

1. Go for a top level domain name:  by top level domain name i am talking about .com, .org, .net cause they are user friendly and your visitors will remember, the likes of .tk and co will only give your blog a bad reputation and make it feel like a front for phishing.

2. Check to see if the domain is not existing before purchase: to do this, you will have to visit a domain registrar website and type the domain name to see if it has been chosen or not. to be on a saver side and be totally sure, type the domain name and run it on search engines, be on the look out for scammers who  claim to be webmasters, what they do is, they buy a domain name use it and later close down their site for a while, then when you purchase the domain name and start using it to gain traffic, they retrieve it back.

3. Do not buy a contradicting domain: lets say for an instance, your website niche is on entertainment and you went ahead to buy a domain with the extension ".edu.ng", the kind of visitors you will attract are the types that are seeking admission and mostly students and they will leave your site immediately once they start seeing news article on Nigeria economy.

4. Do not advertise your unpurchased domain name: what i mean is that, most newbies are victims of this cause they tend to see help and suggestions from online forums on their choice of domain name and when they eventually get the opinions of webmasters, before they will go for it, some of the scammers observing the discussions will end up buying the domain name and sell it back to you at an extra cost.

5. Be sure to buy a domain name which is short and memorizable: lets say for instance you want to buy a domain name on entertainment niche and you named it "entertainmentsplash247.com". I assure you, your visitors will not return as most of them wont be able to remember the domain name, try "entsplash.com" which is easy for everyone to remember.

6. Avoid replacing numbers with letters: Lets say you want to buy a domain name of "naijasam.com" but because it has been taken, you decided to go for "9jasam.com" you will end up loosing your visitors to your competitor as most of your visitors will mistype that "9ja for naija".

7. Avoid going for a plural domain name just because the singular has been taken: Adding an "s" to the end of your domain name just because the singular has been taken is very risky. lets take for instance you see alexa has good traffic and decide to buy it, but because the domain "alexa.com" has been taken, you decided to buy "alexas.com" you will end killing your blogging career as alexa already have devoted and ardent visitors.

8. Ensure that the domain registrar you want to use are reliable and reputable: to avoid stories that touches, most of these domain registrars are driven into such business by hunger, don't fall for such registrars else your money will go down the drain, make extensive research about the hosts you want to use and their years of service.

9. Another thing you must put into consideration is always go with ''.com'': Forget about all these .ng, .com.ng, .org etc. Nigeria is not yet ripe for them. An average Nigerian types .com once you tell him you have a website.