How to start an online dating business
How to choose a good domain name for online dating site
The first step to getting your business started is choosing a good name for your online dating website. Pick a name that is memorable, easy to write and is relevant to what the web site is about. So if it is about vegetarian dating then try and get the word dating or singles or meet and the word vegetarian or some such relevant keyword in the domain. Remember don’t make it too long or use difficult spelling, consider the word of mouth and off line advertising aspects of the name.
Good domain names are hard to come by but it is worth it to spend some time getting it right. There are many registrars out there some will even have suggestion tools to help you pick a name (godaddy, eurodns for example). If you are looking to buy a domain that has already been registered by somebody else, maybe an expired domain or one that was registered for the purpose of resale, Sedo.com is a good place to look for resold domains.
What makes a good dating domain name?
A good domain name can attract a lot of organic traffic (free traffic from search engines) if it is relevant, for example dating.com was sold for 1.75 million dollars recently because it will show up in most searches for the word dating on the search engines. In other chapters I will go into how to prepare your dating site for search engines and our marketing experts has several articles on our blog for SEO (search engine optimization) but the start of this is a good domain name, so pick wisely.
The prize domains are of course the ones with the extension .com, however you will probably find good ones hard to find. Single words are also hard to find, consider stringing one or two or three words together and try separating them with a hyphen, for example vegetariandating.com or vegetarian-dating.com.
Localisation for online dating websites
Consider the market you will be addressing, if you are targeting a German audience, try and obtain a local domain such as .de for Germany. Look for a domain that includes keywords that would show up in the German search engines, foreign word domain names are easier to find than English ones.
Once you have found a name you like and is available the first thing to do is type the name into a Google search. See if there are similar names that can be confused with yours. If possible register both the .com domain as well as the country extension (e.g .de extension for German domains, .it for Italy and so forth). Please note that registrars in some countries reserve the local extension for local businesses and if you don’t have an address in that country it will be difficult to obtain a domain name. Some of the larger domain companies provide a proxy, this means they will register the domain for you using one of their own local representatives. It does cost a bit more but it is not a massive expense, your first paying member will probably cover the cost of your domain for a year.
What if the dot-com domain is taken for my dating website?
If the .com domain name is already taken but you really want that specific name that is already taken register it using some of the other extensions such as .net or .info. If you are planning big you can register the other extensions as well as the .com to protect your online dating brand and block out opportunists who will use the name once you have made it popular.
Using sub-domains can also be a way to save money and create identity if you are planning to run several sites. What you should do is find a good generic dating domain with a .com extension. Let’s say for example you register and own abcdating.com. You can then create a bunch of dating sub-domains such as vegetarian.abcdating.com and senior.abcdating.com. Just enter them in “Your own domain” option when you create a site, and as DNS is already with DatingFactorycom (A leading white label dating platform), it will get activated in no time.
Finally if all else fails and you cannot find your ideal domain name, make sure you register for Dating Factory’s newsletter as often partners sell on domain names. You may get lucky!