Tips for Choosing the Right Domain Name

Your domain name or URL is important for a successful website. Your domain name builds trust and credibility. Even established businesses should have a website to make prospects feel more comfortable and secure. Email addresses at your domain name allow easy handling of customer requests and are much more reputable than email addresses from free webmail accounts. If you choose your website name carefully it will come up easily in internet searches.


Your domain should be one of two things, your company name or a top keyword (keyword phrase). Make it intuitive if possible. The domain should be unique. It is considered somewhat shady to use an only slightly modified version of an already popular website (misspellings for example). If possible choose a dot com (.com). If your traffic will not largely be based on type-ins and branding or name recognition isn’t important, by all means use .net, .org, or other suffix. You will be disadvantaged (without a dot com) if your ideal customers are a little less tech savvy. Many people who use the web still assume it consists only of dot coms.

Of extreme importance is a domain name that is easy to type and easy to remember. Don’t use words that are hard to spell. Some sources recommend avoiding the letters q, z, x, c, and p because they are not easy to type. Because of word of mouth advertising and radio advertising avoid using numbers. You’ll waste your air time explaining, “That’s the number four as a numeral.” The same goes for hyphens; avoid them. Short names are easier to remember and fit more neatly on offline marketing materials.