Domain name is an important thing to consider while creating a professional photography website. Probably this is not so urgent in case you create a simple photo album for individual sharing purposes, but once you are thinking about self-promotion and own photography brand, domain should be a part of your development strategy. Here are 7 tips on how to select a great domain name for various kinds of photo websites.
1. Find several top keywords
Narrow your domain name search circle by picking about 5 words or phrases that describe the domain you’re looking for best of all. For instance, if you are a maternity photographer, you might start your word list with “baby photography, family photo, newborn photography, mother & child photo” then think about combinations, prefixes and suffixes to brainstorm cool domain ideas.
2. Search for *.Com available domains first
If you are concerned with online branding and efficiency of your website, choosing a top level domain is something you should pay attention to. Practice and numerous UX researches show .com is an absolute leader in the type-in search. This means if users remember that your website address is photowebsite, they will most likely type photowebsite.com in the browser address line instead of photowebsite.org or photowebsite.net. You may direct traffic to a .net or, let us say, some local domain, but owning and 301 redirecting the .com version is crucial.
3. Keep the balance of uniqueness and simplicity
While searching for domain ideas, be sure to make it unique. Don’t be misled by plural or misspelled versions of an existing domain. Domains like “Flickrzzz” or “Fotobucket” are your way to failure. Name recognition is a number one priority for a photographer. If you are creating a personal portfolio, such domains as namelastname.com or namephotography.com often work well. However, be careful with long and complicated names - no doubt, rebekkaschwiendheimmer.com is unique, but how many people will manage to remember or at least type this address correctly? Exactly.
4. Make the domain easy to handle
As we already mentioned, simplicity is one of the critical thing to notice while choosing a domain name. If it’s pain for a visitor to remember your domain, give it verbally or type it correctly, say good bye to a good portion of traffic and branding value of your site. You may have a stunningly designed flash photo website, but what’s the point if no one can remember the domain name and hence, tell their friends about your web site? Avoiding hyphens and numbers is reasonable too. Another tip to follow is keeping the name as short as possible. This will add some scores to the “memorability” and both online and offline search friendliness of your domain.
5. Make your domain name speak
It’s wonderful when a domain name speaks about the content that might be found there. JohnSmith.com may not tell anything to the majority of web surfers, while smithphotography.com is was more informative. Besides, first variant will require much more branding and marketing tricks to become recognizable. So including such words as “photography”, “art”, “photo” or “studio” can make your website’s domain name more intuitive and thus, effective.
6. Spice it with a brand
Your name is your brand, for sure. Most photographers use their names for identifying their personal website domains. But what if the name is too long or hard to remember? Using a unique nickname is a great solution. It works especially well for photo blogs or other photography related websites. Not only should domain name create expectations, but it also should give associations and appeal to the user’s imagination. Hence, happysnap.com or photopaul.com can be better than childrenphotography.com or paulmcgrew.com. By the way, it’s very important to make sure you don’t infringe anyone’s copyright with your website’s name, so do make a research before you buy the domain.
7. Don’t follow the fashion
Bet you’ve seen lots of domains that include misspellings (digg.com, dzineblog.com, etc) and adjectives like “top”, “best” and “hot” on the web. This naming technique made a big boom in due time, but now it’s a kind of fashion and everyone around is doing it. Naming your website “superhotphotography.com” or “cool-photoz.com” you can dissolve your identity in the army of clones.
Related posts:
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by John J Albertine and John Albertine, Karen Myers. Karen Myers said: Nice guide: How to Choose a Domain Name for a Photography Website http://bit.ly/69oVy2 [...]
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by ReadyPhotoSite: Nice guide: How to Choose a Domain Name for a Photography Website http://bit.ly/69oVy2...
Great advice. I started with my own name as my URL, but as you point out, a name that’s hard to spell is hard to share. http://www.josephlinaschke.com is impossible! But there are great URL’s still available, you just have to get creative. I recently registered http://www.PhotoJoseph.com and http://www.ApertureExpert.com – wow! I couldn’t believe I got those. It pays to dig a little! Of course now I have some serious rebranding to do
[...] How to Choose a Domain Name for a Photography Website [...]
[...] How to Choose a Domain Name for a Photography Website [...]
[...] How to Choose a Domain Name for a Photography Website [...]
Great info for newcomers to decide which affiliate offers to promote to make maximum profits. I always learn a lot from your posts. Thanks.
[...] How to Choose a Domain Name for a Photography Website [...]
Man oh man - you really opened up my eyes! The Internet has so much information, I get so caught up in so many different directions, it so hard to figure it all out. Thanks again for the post!
Man oh man - you really opened up my eyes! The Internet has so much information, I get so caught up in so many different directions, it so hard to figure it all out. Thanks again for the post!
Brilliant post again. Personally I struggle trying to think of new content regularly. Excellent job on your site.
Cool, there is actually some great ideas on here some of my subscribers may find this relevant, I will send them a link, many thanks.
Just wanted to say thanks for this
Great Informative article, Thank you very much for the information…
The full post can be found here
Hey I found your website by mistake on ask while trying to find something really unrelated but I am truly glad that I did, You have just earned yourself another subscriber.
I want to thank the blogger very much not only for this articles but also for his all previous efforts. I found http://www.readyphotosite.com/blog/photography-websites/how-choose-domain-name-photography-website/ to be greatly interesting. I will be coming back for more articles. Have a good day!
You really make good articles I would say. This is the first time I visited your site and so far I am impressed with the research you made to make this article awesome. Good Job!
I love taking photos. I need to spend more money and get a decent camera though. Anyways, nice and informative content and your blog in general looks very cool. Keep up the good work.
I like the style you have to post I think you do have a great talent
Hi all,
So I’m new to photography–It will be a year this July since I got my hands on my first DSLR–so yes newb to say the least, but I’m in love with photography and I’m looking ahead. I have two different photo sites I belong to as well as my personal email address which are all under lizzard_nyc. My question to you is, what do you think of “lizzardnycphotography” (for a domain name) easy to remember no? but what about the extra “z” is that a no no? I am already getting asked to photograph certain events etc.
BTW great great blog–I’m adding you as a favorite–highly informative. Thank you.
thumbs up for the last blog.
Solid advice here. People must focus on branding a little bit when choosing a domain name.
SEO copywriting is an strange, fairly new niche in freelance writing. Your writting style is very SEO friendly. I’m taking notes. Any tips?
Nice blog dude Thank you
Thx, nice text
This text provides an introduction to all aspects of the emerging world of digital photography. Starting with the camera and image capture, it then goes on the discuss image storage, transfer, editing, printing, and distribution. As am follow the path through i wish to learn much about hardware, software, and procedures.