When it comes to choosing a great domain name, it really should come down to more than just something that sounds clever. There are specific things you can do that can increase the amount of traffic your site gets, of course the focus of your site will go a long way to determining which methods will work best for you. Here are some domain name search ideas to keep in mind the next time you are in the market for a new domain name.

First of all, you have to determine what the purpose of your site will be and how you plan on getting your traffic. If you are putting up a website to sell a product or service online your site name should be something directly related to that product or service. To drastically increase the amount of organic traffic (this it the traffic that basically 'stumbles' upon your website because the search term they used matches the keywords you've used for your sites domain name and any on site search engine optimization you've done) you should create a domain name that is a highly searched for search term.

To illustrate what I mean let's look at the example of a niche on dog training. Let's say that you've done keyword research on this niche and you've found the term 'simple dog training" gets a lot of monthly searches and doesn't have a lot of competition. That would be a great keyword to target. If you could get a domain name that was "SimpleDogTraining.com" you'd likely get a lot of free traffic.

If this is your primary goal you may want to also consider using a .net or a .org extension especially if any non-organic traffic you get will come from links in articles or PPC which people will just click on as opposed to typing in the address (this makes a difference because if people are actually typing the address into their browser bar they are more likely to type a .com than any other extension). You can also have a domain name that is a little longer, usually no more than 4 words is a good rule of thumb.

If the purpose of your site is to encourage visitors to tell their friends and recommend other's check it out you'll want a shorter, easier to remember domain name since most people will have to type the domain name into the browser themselves rather than just click a link and the longer the domain name (or if you have an unusual extension) people will most likely mis-type it and not get to your website.

Once you've got a list of viable domain names it's time to see if they are actually available. To do that go to GoDaddy.com, DomainCheapsters.com or do a search for other's online. Enter your desired domain name and see if it's available. If you buy one domain at a time for a one year period it will cost around $10 a year (you can get discounts if you buy in bulk or if you register a name for more than one year at a time).

Having your own domain name is very important to your success online, picking the right domain is also crucial. Before you start your domain name search, remember to keep these tips in mind.