Having a domain name that reflects your mission is important; if at least because it is so often spoken or written down. And it's mostly done within the context of your business, so it's worth having a domain name that reinforces your business ideas.
A domain name is what people (and the internet) use to locate your Website. It's on your stationary, like your phone number's uglier cousin, and you'll often be required to dictate (and repeat) it, and you may even put it in your logo.
So much fuss over a gaggle of characters.
These days, however, it seems that there's something more to a domain name than just a tangle of techno-tidbits. There's a real culture about them. They are exciting: just a few short words to spearhead your on-line business; a punch of syllables that pierce the ear of your customers and your competitors. Admittedly, it's more important for some than others, but like it or not, there's something magical about these ugly phrases that are from time-to-time surrounded by all sorts of horrible reminders of the complex digital world. In on-line business, it seems now that there's nothing quite like the rhythm of a "dum-diddily-dum dot com" to capture someone's interest. Even if it's for just a second, domain names get attention. And the industry is showing it. Acquiring domain names is big business. Most generic ones or simple ones are already taken and they sell for big money.
When choosing a domain name there a several factors worth considering. While you may address the points raised below, it's not crucial that you place equal weighting on each. After all, it's nearly impossible to tackle them all. Compromise will be required in one or several areas.
How To Choose Your Domain Name
Remember, you may have to compromise on one or several aspects. It's unlikley to fulfil all your wishes when it comes to domain names.
How does it sound to say?
If you told it to people, can they understand it? Can they remember it?
How does it look written down?
Is it too long or does it contain jumbled letters? Is it pleasant to look at or write down?
Does it reflect your business name, or your business mission?
Most often, people choose domain names that reflect their business name. This makes good sense. Domain names can often be a business name surrounded by "www' and '.com.' Your business name is often the best representation of your brand. Your name and brand are very important factors in your business.
Does it indicate your industry or services?
Sometimes it may be beneficial to include your industry or a description of your services. For example, a car salesman, with the company name Joe Bloggs Pty Ltd, might choose "joebloggs-cars.com". This has two benefits: it indicates the type of industry, and it includes a good search keyword ("cars").
Does it contain important keywords?
People search the internet constantly for things that they're after. Search engines will match the search terms that people use with the words in your website. Words which you want to appear under are known as keywords. Someone selling jewellery online, for example, may be wise to choose something like 'discount-online-jewellery.com'. In examples like this, the keywords in the domain name have become more important than the words of the business name or brand.
What's Conventional?
When it comes to choosing your domain name, generally people choose their business name. You may wish to add a keyword to it (as mentioned above), but you do risk it becoming too long, or changing your all-important brand. It's up to you to find the happy medium.
There are some other approaches for choosing a domain name. If your business is product-orientated you may choose a domain name less associated with your business name but more so with your product, like in the example outlined above ('discount-online-jewellery.com'). Let's look at another example...
Example
John Smith runs Smith's Office Health Solutions, a provider of office health equipment. smithsofficehealthsolutions.com may be considered too long a domain name. Moreover, it may be hard to say and potentially difficult to read. The logical conclusion is that we reduce it to something likesmithshealth.com, or even smiths.com. What we may find is that both these domain names are taken (.com address are very popular). We could start by looking for addresses that end in .net, or get an address specific to your local country com.au, net.au, co.nz etc, but in doing so we may begin to ask ourselves, what is the value in having Smith in the domain name. John Smith knows that his brand is not widely known. What he does know, however, is that there is demand for his product.
John starts to focus on his products as inspiration for a domain name, and comes up with workplacehealth.com. It's easy to remember, easy to say and write, and it contains crucial words that not only indicate his industry and products but also words that are prominently searched for on the Internet. John realises that in choosing this domain name he has compromised his brand, but he figures that he can make up for that by providing an excellent branding experience once people actually arrive at his website. John decides that workplacehealth.com will provide more value to his business than using a domain with Smith in it.
Something Unconventional - But Effective
Let's consider John Smith's case a little more. Suppose John later finds that he needs to engage his clients with something more striking and engrossing. He finds that while people have a need for his product, they rarely consider the potential of it. John decides that for his business he'd like to have a domain name that is punchy and memorable. He goes with dontsufferatworkanymore.com (dont suffer at work anymore).
In this way, customers are more intrigued by what the product is and how it could improve their work life. John finds that his website is getting more hits because when people encounter his domain name, either by being told or reading it, they are compelled to find out how they could benefit.
Owning Several Domain Names
You are not restricted to one having one domain name. You should, however, pick one as your primary domain and run the majority of your website operations under that domain name. Having a website operating under the guise different domain names (referred to aliasing) can result in search engines penalising your site. It's a common technique by spammers to display the same website content under different domains.
This considered there are several reasons to by more than one domain and keep them under your name. Having multiple domain names:
- protects your brand
- allows for variations to be type in, when people may have mis-typed your domain
- allows you to use unconventional marketing techniques to attract users to your sites (like the example used above with John Smith)
Provide your domain aliases to your website developer and ask them to point them to your preferred primary domain.
.com | .net | .org. | .com.au | .net.au ... Which Extension ?
The core of your domain name can be appended with all sorts of extensions. The most popular (and most exhausted) is ".com". If your preferred domain name is available as a .com, is advisable to buy it and "park" it, even if you don't intend to use it right away. This is good practice to protect your brand if you think someone else could be interested in your domain name. .com is perceived as an international domain extension, as are other popular extensions like .net and .org.
If you are looking to focus your business in your own local country, it's mostly advised to purchase and operate under a domain that represents your country. For example, in Australia you may purchase your domain as .com.au, or .net.au. There are a couple of advantages in doing this. Firstly, there's more chance that your desired domain name is available, and secondly it has a targeted and local "ring" to it. Also your search engine results may be stronger in your local country. People often equate the extension .com.au, for example, with businesses that operate in Australia. .com may sound international, or even American.
Owning one form of extension does not mean you own any other forms of the domain. For example Joe Bloggs owns joebloggs-cars.com. He does not own joebloggs.com.au, or joebloggs.net. Different forms of a domain are completely seperate and must be purchased as such. Likewise, purchasing a local country domain, mywebsite.com.au, for example does not entitle you to mywebsite.com. You must purchase these domains individually if you want to take ownership of them.
For more information about domain extensions and there meanings, click here for a comprehesive list
with explanations, provided by Website Toad.
New Domain Extensions To Try (.co & .cc)
Due the popularity and long-time existence of .com and .net addresses, almost all of the popular words or phrases are taken. There is, however, often a chance that your local country has its version of the domain available (e.g. mywebsite.com.au for Australia).
There are new possibilities! A release of .co as a new extension has seen businesses scramble for the best domain names once again. Already most of the good .co ones are taken. If you're creative enough you can still find good ones. .co is set to be another widely used and popular international domain extension.
For those slightly more adventurous, .cc has been adopted as a new great-sounding domain name for businesses. It was originally assigned to the Cocos (Keeling Islands), but because of the need for new domain extensions and its simple, great sound, it is now widely being used across the domain industry. Consider buying a .cc domain for your business.
How To Purchase A Domain
Domains are purchased from Domain Registrars. Domain Registrars are everywhere. The best way to choose one is to establish which domain exension you want to buy (and which country that it represents). Managing 10's of domain names across multiple registrars can be a little confusing if you're trying to keep track of them, so try to choose one registrar and stick to it, registering all you future domains under one account.
A good cheap domain registrar in Australia is Crazy Domains. If you want to register more exotic domain name extensions, like .co or .cc, you may need to try something like Go-Daddy, which provides more of an international approach to purchasing domains.