After choosing the perfect company name for your new business, it is time to select and register the domain name that will represent your online brand. Your domain name is often the first point of contact people have with your brand, and therefore creates in a person’s mind their first impression of your business. It is vital that you make the domain name for your business something that is not too complicated, that represents your brand well, and that will help your audience to remember you by.
Do Your Research
As of 2016, the internet contained more than 326 million existing domain names. While brainstorming ideas for your new business’s domain name, research the ideas you come up with. Make sure there are not any domain names already out there that are similar to them and that would have people often confusing your domain name with another. Also, do a little digging on whether the domain name options you are coming up with (or anything particularly close to them) is trademarked. Doing so can help you avoid unnecessary legal issues in the future.
Utilize Keywords
Always keep SEO in mind when selecting and registering a domain name. The right keywords within your domain name can help boost your rankings with online search engines and lead to more users coming across your site in their Google searches. Do not try to place keywords in your domain name in a way that does not make sense just for the sake of having them, but if they are an organic fit, they can prove to be helpful. Know also that placing keywords at the beginning of your domain name is optimal for your ranking.
Make it Memorable
Your domain name NEEDS to be something people will remember! The easier it is for people to remember, the greater your chances are of having traffic driven to your site, both in first-time users of your website and in people coming back to it time and time again. Also, ideally you should have “.com” as your domain name’s extension. With 75 percent of registered names having “.com” as their domain name extension, it is by far the most common and therefore the most recognizable and easiest for people to recall.
Make it Relevant
Your domain name is the foundation of your brand. It is how people will find you online, remember you, and share your business with others. Therefore, it must be brandable and relevant to your business. Avoid choosing too generic of a domain name. It should stand for something, whether that is simply your business name itself, what it is that you offer, or some sort of combination of the two. Make a statement with the domain name for your new business.
Avoid Hyphens and Numbers
Numbers and characters in a domain name can get confusing. If you are verbally sharing your domain name with someone else and it has “3” in it, the other person might not know whether that is “3” or “three” and make their own assumption. With hyphens, people often forget to add them altogether when typing your domain name into their browser or put them in the wrong place. Avoid these mishaps altogether by keeping your business’s domain name words-only.
Keep it Concise
According to research from Gaebler.com, the top five websites have about six letters each in their domain names. Then, as you move down the list of the top 1 million domain names, you can find that there is an inverse correlation between the length of a domain name and the traffic it receives. Keep your domain name short and sweet to help build the popularity of your business’s website.
Make it Easy to Type, Read, and Say
Overall, your domain name needs to be easy to understand in all methods of communication, written and verbal. Do not leave your consumer wondering how to spell or how to pronounce your domain name — that makes it much less likely for them to pay your website a visit or share your website with their friends! Use words for your domain name that are common enough that they are recognized when seen or heard.
A business’s domain name represents its brand, gives it exposure, and gets people to interact with it. Choose a domain name for your new business that will positively impact its brand and how it is accepted by its audience.
