Tips on Choosing a Good Domain Name
Perhaps the first thing you should do before taking your business online is consider your domain name. Here are some questions you’re probably asking yourself and our thoughts on the matter that will hopefully help you arrive at a better decision when choosing the right domain name for your business.
1.Long or Short Domain Names?
You can actually own a domain name with up to 67 characters. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you should have a terribly long domain name, but this can be helpful if your company name is Acme and you sell motor parts, as you will want to differentiate yourself from a company called Acme Furniture. So you get www.acmemotorparts.com and they get www.acmefurniture.com.
2.Top Level Domains (.com? Or .com.au?)
These letters (.com, net, .org) appended to the end of your domain names are called Top Level Domains (TLD). The “.com” TLD is the most common and often used domain on the web with “.net” the second most popular. If your business is country specific then you may like to have a country specific TLD such as “.au” for Australia.
So, let’s say, on the internet, somebody already beat you to the use of www.acmefurniture.com. If your company (Acme Furniture) caters primarily to customers in Australia, then you can simply acquire www.acmefurniture.com.au.
3.Hyphenated Names?
If your business or blog has a very long name (www.acmefurniture.com.au) you should probably consider using a separator in your domain name in order to avoid spelling mistakes. Using a separator also removes any confusion with your domain name spellings. As an example, it is always better to have a domain name name like www.acme-furniture.com.au rather than having www.acmefurniture.com.au.
Using a separator also improves the readability of your domain name and search engines can distinguish your keywords better and thus return your site more prominently in search results for those keywords occurring in your domain name.
4. Generic Names Or Brand Name Domains?
There are different reasons why some companies opt for a generic name or a brand name. Some companies choose a generic name (such as www.cars.com, www.hotels.com, www.sydneyrestaurant.com) so that they can easily be found. A great number of people seem to believe in this, and so you’ll notice how much money those generic names are being sold for.
However, if you look around at the most popular and successful online business, not a lot of their domain names sound generic or obvious. Google, Yahoo and Amazon.com being prime examples.
For that reason, you should consider a domain name that matches your brand name. The real issue here is actually how clever you are with coming up with your brand name. Make sure that your brand name is distinct, relatable, and most importantly, memorable.
Good luck choosing the domain name best suited to your business!
