How to gauge traffic potential?

[sunja]

I'm trying to decide between several domains, to me the names all sound pretty good, but how do I know what people are more likely to be searching for? At the moment, I'm just tapping the words into google and going with whatever has the most results.

For example (and these are just made up domains, not the area I'm looking at):

1) cheeseandwine.com
2) cheeseandbiscuits.com
3) cheesebiscuit.com
4) cheesybiscuit.com -hey! this one's actually available! (but not for long, eh? )
5) reallycheesy.com

now, they're all pretty good names for the cheese industry - how should I decide which to register?

as far as google results goes (minus quotes), it's like this:
"really cheesy" - 1.09M
"cheese and wine" - 1.02M
"cheese and biscuits" - 570k
"cheesy biscuit" - 182k
"cheese biscuit" - 181k

so would that mean reallycheesy.com would be the best to get? What other factors/indicators should I look at? Is there somewhere I can look for number of searches per day etc?

[garptrader]

I'm trying to decide between several domains, to me the names all sound pretty good, but how do I know what people are more likely to be searching for? At the moment, I'm just tapping the words into google and going with whatever has the most results.

1) cheeseandwine.com
2) cheeseandbiscuits.com
3) cheesebiscuit.com
4) cheesybiscuit.com -hey! this one's actually available! (but not for long, eh? )
5) reallycheesy.com


as far as google results goes (minus quotes), it's like this:
"really cheesy" - 1.09M
"cheese and wine" - 1.02M
"cheese and biscuits" - 570k
"cheesy biscuit" - 182k
"cheese biscuit" - 181k

so would that mean reallycheesy.com would be the best to get? What other factors/indicators should I look at? Is there somewhere I can look for number of searches per day etc?

Look under Google adwords and see how much advertisers are bidding on the phrases you are considering. You can also see via Google adwords a relative average search volume (low/medium/high). Inserting the phrase in quotes "cheese+and+biscuits" in Google shows 74k pages with that SPECIFIC phrase. "really+cheesy" in Google shows 171k pages with that SPECIFIC phrase. Perhaps you can find a common phrase with the word "cheese" in it that would receive some natural traffic. But before registering dozens of cheese names, ask yourself why someone would want to buy that domain.

[sunja]

thanks, great tip re: adwords. I had seen the search volume tool there before but just didn't think of it.

( I'm not really going after cheese domains you know )

[draggar]

Why not? Cheese is a very popular industry in the US and Europe.

[sunja]

well, cheesybiscuit.com is still there - go get it!

[mikedee]

"really cheesy" does not necessarily relate to cheese. ie "That film was really cheesy"

Another factor you should work out is the profit on each sale since someone looking for cheese and wine would be probably spending more than someone looking for cheese biscuits.

I know you are not actually looking for cheese, but maybe this would apply to your domains too

[sunja]

yeah, I hear what you're saying.
Unfortunately there really is little to choose between the domains; it's more a case of "word1sword2" vs "word1word2s" or even "word1word2" vs "word2word1".

I guess I'll just have to take the plunge and risk a few losses before I get the hang of it.

[draggar]

I guess I'll just have to take the plunge and risk a few losses before I get the hang of it.

I've learned that the hard way, I have many "losses" right now.

Educated trial and error are the best way.