It’s been declared over and over that the best domain names are already taken. As of the publication of this post, Verisign reported over 118 million .com registrations. It’s certainly not easy to pick the domain name that’s right for your business, but it can be done.
Simplicity
The first and most important consideration when choosing a domain name is that it’s easy to remember, easy to type, and easy to spell correctly. When you say it out loud, ideally it should be easily understood. If you don’t have to use a hyphen, skip it. Also skip clever spellings, like “laff” instead of “laugh.”
Avoid Homophones
You may have heard of “typosquatting,” a phenomenon that’s been around since domain names have been sold. Google, for example, has acquired common typo versions of its domain name, so that if you accidentally type gogle.com (which I personally do on a daily basis!), you’ll still be directed to google.com. Now there’s even a new phenomenon called “soundsquatting,” which takes advantage of homophones to confuse users: for example, yewtube.com for youtube.com. When choosing your domain name, try to think about how it could be confusing to people hearing it for the first time. If your domain name is greatcheese.com, will people think it might be gratecheese.com instead?
Avoid Numbers
A domain name like cash4you.com falls prey to the homophone problem described above. Numbers can also be perceived as spammy, so unless it’s an important part of your business name, try to work around them.
Use Your Keywords
Think of your domain name like an elevator pitch. You have seconds to describe your brand to your fellow elevator passenger before he gets off at the next floor. Can your domain name do the task? Use keywords in your domain name where possible! The domain name smithandwood.com might be elegant, but make it smithwoodconstruction.com instead, and it’s instantly obvious what your company does.
Check the Legalities
Before getting too attached to a domain name, do your research with copyright.gov and the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. It’s better to do your research up front, rather than deal with the time, money, and heartache of a trademark battle down the line. And it’s never any fun to be confused with another company.
Alternative Domain Name Extensions
Even though yourperfectdomainname.com may be registered, yourperfectdomainname.solutions may be available. Should you take it? It really depends. Right now, the biggest potential problem with using alternative extensions is that people tend to forget that you’re using the .info or .co extension, and type it with the .com extension… completely defeating the purpose of registering a unique domain name.
Test and Test Some More
We can’t stress how important it is to try out your possible domain names on friends, family, customers—basically anyone you can. When you’re this close to the situation, it can be difficult to miss a big mistake. Can you spot the problems with these domain names?
- childrenswear.co.uk – Children’s Wear
- ihavegas.com – IHA Vegas Holiday Rentals
- teacherstalk.com – Teachers Talk
- choosespain.com – Choose Spain
You also need to make sure that the domain hasn’t been abused in the past. Check the Wayback Machine to see if it’s been used for a spammy or salacious website in the past. If your desired domain name has a bad history, that can haunt you.
Take it All!
When you purchase a domain name, the registrar will typically suggest that you purchase the alternative suffixes—.co, .net, .org—if they’re available. But what you might not have considered is that you can also purchase a domain name that doesn’t have your company name in it. For example, we purchased beststoragedallas.com and pointed it to northtexasstorage.com. Are the SEO benefits worth it? Maybe so, maybe not—but it’s always nice to have a domain name like that instead of letting it be picked up by a competitor. And for less than $13 per year in most case, it’s certainly not a big investment.
Need help with a domain name? I.T. Roadmap can help. Just contact us and we can set up a consultation.
