Finding the Best Domain Name for your Business

Are you ready to get your company on the web? Good. Everyone needs to start with a domain name. A domain name is a unique address identifying each site on the internet. It is part of the DNS (Domain Name System) and it’s used for your web site and e-mail.

There are several types of extensions for domain names, but the most common are .com, .net, .edu, and .org.

• .com is typically used for commercial sites, but can actually be used for any type of website.
• .net is also used for many kinds of web sites.
• .edu is reserved for educational organizations and institutions
• .org is used for organizations, most commonly for non-profit organizations.

Make it Memorable

The first step in choosing a domain name is making it memorable. Just like a business name, your domain name represents your company. If people have a hard time remembering it, then you’re going to have a hard time branding it over the long-term.

If you’ve spent time and money developing your business, then the obvious choice is registering a domain name with your company name in it, if not all of it. If “yourbusiness” dot com is not available, then you may want to append something else to the end or beginning and see if that’s available.

Here are some key things to remember when finding your domain name.

• It should be easy to spell.
• The shorter the better.
• Avoid using dashes and numbers.
• Avoid confusables – such as “dot (can be confused with an actual . ),” “u” versus “you,” and “4” versus “for”
  • If you must use a confusable, then register every other variation of it and direct them all to the same address. For example, if your company is called “Business 4 You,” register businessforyou.com, business4you.com, businessforu.com, and businessforyou.com

We’ll get into how to buy a domain name that is already registered in a future post.

Why You Should Buy a .com extension (for most businesses)

.com extensions are the most memorable. A lot of web site traffic comes from direct type-in traffic. Type-in traffic is where an internet user types in the website address directly into their browser to go straight to a website. Rather than going to Google or Yahoo to search for your company, they recall an address and head straight to your web site within their browser.

The dot.com extension is the most popular extension, so even if they do not remember your exact web site address, many people will type “yourbusinessname” into the browser, trailing it with .com. Even if the user does not type in the .com extension, some browsers will add it automatically. That’s why some people will type what they are searching for into the address bar and hit enter, rather than using a search.

Where to come up with ideas for your Domain Name

While most established businesses will look for their own business name or a variation of it, new businesses can simultaneously look for their business name and domain name. A good tool on the web for finding available domain names quickly is Instant Domain Search, which allows you to see what is registered on the fly.

What to do when you find your perfect domain name?

There are a few important things to do when you find your perfect domain name. You should be prepared to pay more than the $10 registration fee.

• Register it now! There are a million and one places to register a domain name. We prefer GoDaddy and NameCheap. Register it quickly, because you never know how long it will be available.
• Register it for 5 or more years. You don’t want to be caught in a situation where you forget to renew your domain name a year later and lose it. Another benefit to long-term registration is better credibility among search engines. Your domain registration information is public information, so when a search engine like Google sees that your domain will be around for a long time, it is less likely to considered a spammy web site. (Spammers will use “throw-away” domains that won’t be registered for more than a year)
• Protect your brand by registering various typo errors that may commonly occur. Use this tool domain typo tool to get ideas for the type of typos your domain may have. Direct all of the typos to your main address.

And there you have it. Registering a domain name is simple, but finding the right one can to register can take some time. Think it through carefully and always remember you are building a brand for the long haul!

Tags: best domain name, business tip, domain, domain name, domain tools, registration

This entry was posted on Friday, November 16th, 2007 at 2:36 pm and is filed under domain names. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.