Here is a fact – almost all “good” domain names are booked or are for sale at a very high price. People who want to start a business online are finding it very difficult to get a domain of their choice. Therefore what most people do is compromise with adding really ugly looking numbers or characters in front or behind their desired domain name. For example – 123keyword.com, keywordabc.com, keyword-someotherkeyword.com. You get the idea.

So how do you get a great domain name?

If a domain name you are searching is already bought by someone else, then you can backorder that domain and wait to see if the owner eventually leaves that domain and the domain expires.* Your backorder domain registrar will then try to “catch” that domain and offer it to you. Interestingly backordering a domain comes for free. But there may be a 3 day auction if two or more people are interested in the expired domain. The highest bidder gets the domain.

*A domain expires when the owner is not willing to renew the domain (pay the domain registration fee on or before the domain expiry date). Of course the owner has up to 3 months to re-register the domain. During this time the domain search will show “pending delete”. If she/he doesn’t pay even in the pending delete period – the domain is freed and goes back to ICANN and anyone can register the domain. However if there is a backorder, then an auction takes place.

There are many companies that offer backorder of expired domains. Some of them are Snapnames.com, Namejet.com and Pool.com.

If you have backordered, then be ready for an auction as good domains are being bought by domain name selling business people. Unfortunately these people sit on a lot of cash, and its really hard to beat them. They get the domain and sell it (not backorder) at 3x to even 10x the price.

However if you are the only person who has backordered, then you can get the domain for as little as $59.

If the domain is profitable, chances are the owner will keep renewing the domain every year. In that case what do you do? Some domain registrars like GoDaddy.com try to “negotiate” with the current owner on your behalf and try to buy the domain for you. However please remember that this is a very complicated process as a third party will try to contact the current owner and talk on your behalf. This can be costly too as you have to pay the current owner as well as commission to the broker.

This option is good only if you have a lot of cash and are willing to get the domain “at any cost”. Of course this is much faster way of getting a domain you want if it’s already bought and the owner is willing to sell. Most of the news you read regarding someone buying (or selling) a domain is because of this. And these run in the millions, even billions of dollars for really good domains and business. For example Google bought YouTube for $1.65bn. But if it’s a small business, you can get the domain in some thousands of dollars.

All these options are good if you have a lot of money and can buy a domain from someone else or can bid to get that excellent domain. Unfortunately if your budget is only $10 for a domain, you have no other choice but to invent a good domain.

One of the best ways is let your target keyword be there and combine this will a general word that goes well with the domain.

For example see my domain – WebMarketingArt.com. Web Marketing is my keyword (I can’t call it a target keyword as it’s extremely difficult to get good rank for Web Marketing – but it serves my purpose.) Combined with “Art” it makes sense and is memorable too.

So what you need to do is combine the main keyword and a general word to get an attractive domain.

Hope this article helps you in getting a good domain name. If you happen to buy a domain with the help of this article do come back and post in the comment. Looking forward!