Your small business website is the first contact Internet searchers have with your business. Your home page starts to build a relationship with prospects even before you know they exist. When prospects find that you offer valuable information to help them achieve their goals, they are more willing to trust you as an online expert.

It all starts with your domain strategy. Domain strategy is just as important as deciding your company's name, and for many, their company name is their domain name. Here are some things to keep in mind when you register your domain name:

Brand You: Your domain, or Internet URL, is your brand on the Worldwide Web. This is your Dot.Com-your Internet business name. It's not chiseled in stone-you can start over again and rename your small business website, but that can cause all sorts of headaches. Make the right choice now and save yourself a load of trouble down the road.

What's in a name? More than meets the eye. When you choose a domain name for your small business website, make sure it's one that reaches out to customers and makes them feel at home. . Jonathan Wilberforce Edmonds IV is a wonderful and noble name, but the very sight of jonathanwilberforceedmondsiv.com is enough to scare prospects away from your website. On the other hand, JonEdmonds.com opens the door for prospects as they come in. Remember: Your Internet domain starts building a relationship with prospects even before you do.

Keywords are Key: By researching the best keywords for a prospective client, you can make your domain search engine optimized. For instance, if you sell inspirational books, you might find that keywords like inspirational books, self-help books, personal growth books are all terms that prospective clients will use when searching for products you carry. It wouldn't hurt to make your domain something like PersonalGrowthandInspirationalBooks.com. It's as if you're loading your site with keywords from the start and people will begin finding you the moment that you purchase your domain.

Easy To Say, Easy to Remember: I always say that you should picture yourself speaking to a client in their car on their cell phone. They are not going to be able to write down a long domain name with a bunch of dashes, numbers or abbreviations. For instance "CallCathy4RE.com" becomes "call cathy with a 'c' - the number four, the letters R - E which stands for real estate - .com. " This is a disaster for remembering. Try to use easy to spell words and nothing hard to remember.

Domain strategy is fun, and it can be exciting to search for all sorts of domain names. When it comes to your Small Business, be smart about your domains. Use good research tactics and put as much effort and time into finding a good domain for your company as you did when you created your company's business plan.

Brett Miller, the founder of HoopJumper WebSystems, is the creator of Webepreneur, an easy-to-use website building program for small business owners and individual service professionals that makes it easy to get your website visible and popular engine-wide. If you're a Small Business Owner and you want help with domain strategy, go to http://www.webepreneur.com/ or http://www.hoopjumper.com/ to find out how we can customize your domains to bring business to you!

About the Author

Brett Miller, the founder of HoopJumper WebSystems, is the creator of Webepreneur, an easy-to-use website building program for small business owners and individual service professionals that makes it easy to get your website visible and popular engine-wide. If you're a Small Business Owner and you want help with domain strategy, go to http://www.webepreneur.com/