Many writers agree: if you want to have a successful business, you need a website. Not only does this increase brand awareness with potential clients, a website–if designed and promoted the right way–can propel you as an expert in your given niche, leading to more writing and money-making opportunities.

But behind every successful “writer’s website” is an equally as successful domain name. Unfortunately, most writers make this their last priority, when it really should be their first.

Here are four things you probably don’t know about domain names:

1. Keywords matter. If you’re not concerned about increasing organic traffic to your website, this isn’t a concern. But if you’re using your website as a way for clients to find you, keywords are essential. But why?

Think of it this way. Most of your organic traffic is going to come from search engine (mostly Google) queries. Including relevant keywords that relate to your website, such as writing or SEO, makes your website more SEO-friendly. Potential clients are more likely to type in keywords related to the work they’re requesting, such as “high quality SEO articles”, into Google. Unless they’re already aware of your online presence, they’ll rarely type your name into the search bar.

So how can you incorporate this into your domain name? Simple–incorporate the keywords into your domain name with other unique keywords that are related to your website.

For example, WritingJobResource.com primarily provides content about getting–and finding–writing jobs online and offline. “Writing” and “Job” are the main keywords here, with “Resource” being the unique keyword. Alternatively, you can combine these keywords with your name (for example, OlsonSEOContent.com or AnnOlsonWriting.com).

2. The domain name’s suffix can kill traffic. .com’s are arguably the most popular domain name suffix–unfortunately, many people assume it is the only domain name suffix available.

For example, let’s say Bob, who’s interested in cake, comes across a website called CakeisDelicious.org. A few days later he wants to visit the site again, so from memory he types in CakeisDelicous.com. Nothing shows up.

Confused, Bob assumes he typed in wrong name, and types in CakeDelicious.com. Another website shows up, but it’s not the same website. Bob becomes frustrated and decides to look for delicious cake pictures elsewhere. CakeisDelicious.org loses a potential repeat visitor in the process. The process repeats with other visitors, and eventually the traffic loss builds up.

So what’s the moral to this story? If you want repeat traffic, choose a .com and redirect the remaining suffixes of your domain name–.net, .info, .org–back to the .com. Can’t afford to buy out all of the suffixes? Stick with a .com instead; most people will assume your domain name ends in a .com by default.

3. Complicated, long or hard-to-spell words can affect traffic. Remember, spelling is not everyone’s forte–if it’s hard to remember or spell, most people won’t make that extra effort to spell your domain name correctly. For example, SEO is easy to remember, but optimization isn’t. Quiz is easier to spell than quizzical, stop is easier than restrictions, etc. Also, remember to stay away from words that have both British and American variants, such as program/programme or color/colour.

4. Hyphens are bad for traffic. Again, not everyone is going to remember your domain name has hyphens. Hyphens also require more effort to type; the average web user probably isn’t accustomed to reaching for the hyphen key by memory. Instead of Cake-is-delicious.org, aim for Cakeisdelicious.org. Writingbuddies.com is going to get more return visitors than Writing-buddies.com.

Remember, KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) to increase website traffic, and strive to make it SEO-friendly and focused on your niche.