Jonathan Clayman - Web Strategist

In discussions with clients, I often come across domain names which are not a good choice for various reasons. Selecting your domain name is an extremely important task which shouldn’t be taken lightly. After all, it gives your potential site visitors and customers a first impression of sorts when they see the name. Like everything on the internet these days, you are competing with many others who are promoting their goods and services so make sure you do plenty of brainstorming before selecting your domain name.

Of course, this may take some time because often your first choice may not be available.

Here are 7 tips to help you select a great domain name:-

1. Choose a domain name that’s easy to type and rolls off the tongue. It is a good idea to avoid the use of colloqualisms or slang. M84u.com may mean something to you for your new introduction agency but it will mean nothing to many of your potential customers. There are of course millions of registered domain names so selecting one that is memorable and catchy is extremely important. Ask for honest opinions from family and friends on your choice to ensure it is appealing to them. Soliciting feedback from your past and present customers is also an excellent idea.
2. Keep your domain name short and ensure it is not too lengthy orcomplex. A domain name such as Myreallycoolcardetailingbusiness.com will increase the likelihood of customers mistyping the name or getting the spelling incorrect. Also remember that you will be using it for your business email address making it even longer! Short andsweet is the way to go.
3. One tactic often used is to use a keyword phrase that describes your products or services. For example if you are a furniture repairer then you could register a name such as furniturerepairs.com. There are differing schools of thought on this because many businesses prefer to register a domain based on their business name to keep branding consistent.
4. If you are focusing on a particular town, city, region or state,then consider including it in your domain name. This makes it easier for local customers to find and remember. For example ManlyPlumbing.com.
5. Avoid the use of hyphens and numbers in your domain name. A domain name such as car-detailing-business-4u.com is likely to cause confusion. Your customers will get confused whether numbers are spelt out or written as the number. Hyphens often end up being put in the wrong place or confused with underscores, causing further confusion.
6. Be sure to do your research to ensure the name you have chosen is not copyrighted, trademarked or already in use. The last thing you need is to find yourself faced with legal issues and the loss of your website/domain due to this.
7. Choose an appropriate domain name extension. These are the suffixes placed at the end of web addresses, such as .com or .net. There are loads of these on offer but .com or .net are the most popular. As you would expect, these are also the hardest to find available domain names for, so it may be worth looking at others.

If you are an Australian business not looking to do business outside of Australia then a .com.au domain will be your best option. This is also likely to rank your site higher in search engine results for searches on Australian versions of search engines such as Google and Bing.

Many of the domain name search tools will also return domain name ideas which you may not have thought of.

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