Cool free tool on domain search

When you start up your jewelry business, you most probably start with Etsy.com. However unless you're really 'making it' (which rather few of them do), you'll end up being one of the many thousand of sellers there, who have to struggle being noticed by people. Plus you might realise that Etsy is one of those sites that might live forever, or close shop tomorrow. Plainly put, it's not yours. Those who want to get out of the Etsy anonymity, they decide to open their shop under their own name, or website.

Having your own website to sell jewellery is a big plus, because you are the sole owner of it, you can do anything you want with it, you don't have to respond to anyone else, but you. If you don't post items 5 times a day, you won't go to the 250th page buried down the line, but you'll still be there for anyone who cares to visit your site. You no longer depend on anyone else.
Plus you can advertise your site much more efficiently, unlike on Etsy (or Dawanda, or any other shop front), where you can't do any SEO management.

If you decide to take the plunge and get out of anonymity, the first thing you need is a domain. A domain is plainly put the name of your site that comes after the http:// part. It is very important that your domain is relevant to what you are doing online, so that Google can index your site fast, and people who are searching for say 'jewelry' will find you right away. Of course, there is more to it, but that is the first step.
If you are selling your handcrafted jewelry, and your domain name is www.discountshoes'.com, well you'll only be seen in Google searches if somebody is looking for 'discount shoes', i.e. shoes on the cheap.

So how do you find a good domain name, relevant to what your business will be, and how you go about actually getting that domain name?

First thing first, you need to search for a domain.
I've found a pretty cool (heck, extremely cool!) free tool that does it all: searches for available domain names based on the keywords (simply put the relevant words that you are interested in, such as jewelry, handcrafted jewelry, artisan jewelry, you get the gist) you enter and it searches the internet for a domain name that is actually free for you to register. For example, you can't just go ahead and get www.jewelry.com, because that is a very sought after word, and that is 110% already taken (haven't actually checked if it's taken, but I am totally confident that it is).
The cool tool is called BustAName, and I urge you to go ahead and just play with it. It's free.

Now, how do you use that tool?
There are two ways to use it.

1. Word Combiner - here you simply enter one at a time your keywords and after each one press Add. As soon as the search program finds an available name based on the words you input, it will list it for you. If you don't like it, add some more words, it will find something.

2. Quick domain check - if you already have some names that you'd want to take, but are not sure if they're available, just type them one at a time, and again, the software will search automatically the internet and let you know instantly if it's available or not. Hm, just tried something, jewelryniche, and the .com domain is gone, but the .org and .info are still available...(hint hint). Make sure that you enter at least 2 or more words that go well together, because you will simply not find any longer domains with 1 word only (say jewelry.com), they're all taken. That's why I said before that I won't even look, coz I know it's long not available anymore.

Now after you've found the domain that you want your website to be located at, next step is to register your domain. I have a domain registered with Godaddy. To be honest, I find it's the best. However, if you've heard of others that you'd like to try, at the bottom right handside of the screen, where it says 'buy domain through', just pull the drop-down menu and you'll see each domain registrar with their prices. Note that the prices are per year. This is how much you will pay per year for your domain.
I already have my Godaddy domain, and I'm sorry I didn't find earlier this tool, because I would have saved myself about $4. If you go to the Godaddy website and register a .com domain, for example, it's about $10 per year. Not much, granted. But if you can save $3 or $4 in the process, why not take action immediately?

Tip: once you get the domain, you need to also host it somewhere. Since it's something you have to do, no way around it, you might as well buy a package of domain name + hosting, it's cheaper than if you go shopping around on the net finding the best deal. Plus if both are done at the same place, it's easier to get support. Afterall, you want the domain to be yours for a while, since you're in it in the long run, no?

So once again, since this post got pretty long, here is the link to BustAName. Go ahead and play with it :) Did I already say it's free? :)