Choosing the domain name for your website can be much like deciding on a name for your offspring. To help remove some of the pressure of this far-reaching decision, we would like to share some tips for obtaining the ideal domain name (website address) for your business.

Brevity

A domain name ideally will be short. Some classic examples of short, distinctive domains: google.com, yahoo.com, and youtube.com. An example of a domain we would not recommend: extremelyfineprecisionwidgetsinc.com. This is more difficult to say in a phone conversation, more complicated so it is less memorable, and more difficult to use on a business card than necessary. An email address using this domain (such as [email protected]) would have to be printed very small or on more than one line of a business card, and may also be difficult to fit in the website content. Also, any domain longer than 32 characters cannot be used in a Google AdWords campaign and there are other similar restrictions which might limit the domain’s usefulness later.

Memorability

A domain name should be memorable. A domain name for our example company Very Fine Precision Widgets Inc. might use the acronym form efpwi.com and this would certainly be short, but this sequence of letters would not be memorable to most people. The domain using the full name extremelyfineprecisionwidgetsinc.com would be more memorable to someone who already knows the company name, but is very long and probably would be difficult to remember for most people if the company name was not familiar to them. A much better domain would be widgets.com if this were available.

Familiarity

For a private professional’s website, we recommend that the domain name evoke somehow the name of your business. A “discoverable” domain is one which might be guessed from a word or words having to do with the domain’s topic, such as slideshow.com or hardware.com. For a company called “Widgets Inc.”, the domain name widgetsinc.com would be easily discovered. On the other hand, a “brandable” domain is one that is very distinctive and unlike common words or phrases. Some examples are google.com or oovoo.com. For a brandable domain to be effective, it must be associated indirectly in the minds of the Internet public and this requires large, expensive advertising efforts. For a private professional it’s best to avoid “brandable” domains unless they match your business name.

Competition for Domains

On the topic of finding an available domain: while we recommend that you use a domain made up of the shortest possible version of your company name and “.com,” it may not be possible to obtain this domain. Domains are registered on a first-come, first-served basis and many of the most obvious domains are already in use. Of the registered domains, many have been snatched up by “domain squatters” who purchase domains betting on the likelihood that at least some or most of them will be valuable to somebody so that the squatter can re-sell them for a higher price. If the domain you most want to use is already registered, and it does not appear to be in use for its ostensible topic (there is just a placeholder page or links to other sites), you may want to try negotiating to purchase the domain. To do this: (1) find who has registered the domain using a “whois” free service such as easywhois.com, (2) contact the registrant to ask them if they will sell the domain, and (3) if they are willing to sell it, negotiate a purchase price. They will generally start with a high bid, and can almost always be talked down to a much lower price.

Using .com

In the United States, .com is the standard TLD (“Top Level Domain” or the last letters after a period in a domain name, indicating the “level” of the domain) that Internet users associate with domain names for businesses. Other TLDs can be used, however it is not usually recommended unless it is unavoidable in obtaining your best possible domain name. Business owners in other countries may wish to use the TLD for their particular country to emphasize their location (.fr for France, .uk for United Kingdom, etc.).

You can use the .net or .org domain if the .com domain you want is not available, however it is important to note that most people think of .net as a TLD for network technology companies such as Internet Service Providers and .org as one for non-profit organizations. It is controversial as to whether it would be better to use a .biz or .info domain, since these are lower-priced and therefore often abused by spammers. If you are comfortable appropriating a .net or .org for your business, one of these may be the best option. According to many experts, any of these four can be a good alternative to a .com domain.

Domains with Characters

Domains can contain only letters, numbers, hyphens, and the period before the TLD. This is reasonable on a number of fronts, for instance special characters intended to be used for specific linking purposes would be ineffective if they were allowed in domain names. Speaking of hyphens, it is not usually recommended that you use one in your domain. When a domain name is given verbally, for example “widgets inc dot com” most people will associate this with widgetsinc.com not widgets-inc.com. There are a few circumstances where it might be advisable to use a hyphen. One example: if unable to register widgetsinc.com, widgets-inc.com could be used as an alternative. This however opens the risk that potential customers will go to a different site, whenever the domain is not carefully given in conversation or they forget to use the hyphen. Another circumstance: at times, letters in a domain name may spell other words with unintended meanings. A real-life example: the site experts-exchange.com, a subscription site for technology information, was originally expertsexchange.com which many people saw as “expert sex change” not “experts exchange.” While humorous, this was not desirable for the service in terms of gaining new customers!

While we’re talking about a domain’s character: when choosing a domain it is a good idea to keep in mind how it will be conveyed in a spoken conversation especially in phone calls. Are there a lot of letters which sound like other letters, such as T/P or S/F? Would it be difficult or complicated to say?

Availability

It is easy to check available domains. You can go to the website of a domain registrar and use their search feature. For example, you could go to Instant Domain Search and use the search box in the left of the screen. If the domain name you entered is not available, the site will make some suggestions for alternates.

Checking for Trademark

There may be no consequence to skipping this step, but it can be very regrettable at times if not done: checking for existing trademark. If you infringe someone else’s trademark, they may be able to legally prevent you from continuing to use the domain name after you have worked to get it ranked favorably in search engines. You can check the copyright.gov website to find whether someone else is already using a trademark identical to or similar to text in the intended domain.

Search Engines Save the Day

If you cannot get your ideal domain name, take heart: in most cases, an Internet user will use a search engine such as Google to find your site if they cannot remember the domain name or if they reach a site which is obviously not for your business. We offer quite a bit of assistance in getting your site to appear prominently in searches for terms related to your location and services.

If you would like to use our website hosting, we would be very happy to suggest potential website addresses for your site and register a domain for you. Just give us a call or send an email!

Tim L – CoachingWebsites Support
Email any questions to [email protected]