One of the first things you are told to do when creating an online presence for your business is to create a website. 

Now that’s some good advice!  

Although it might not seem like it because of the many websites out there, creating a website should be a big deal for your business. That big deal begins with choosing the right domain name. 

What is a domain name?

A domain name is the name you choose to use for your website. For example at  Boutique Digital Marketing, our domain name is Boutiquedigitalmarketing.com. Although ours does, your domain name does have to be the same as your business and it does not have to end with .com, it could end with other things like .org or .net. If you do decide to deviate from .com, keep in mind that, due to its popularity, most people end up typing .com anyways. 

No matter which one you choose to go with, the domain name should be related in a way that people can easily link it back to your business and its functions. 

Choosing the Right Domain Name

There are three main aspects to consider when choosing a domain name. These are relevance, memorability, and usability. 

Relevance

Although it is recommended that your domain name is the same as your business, it does not have to be; however, it does have to be relevant to the products and services that you provide. For example, some company names may be too long or too general. If your Business name is Los Angeles Cleaning Services you might want to choose laclearning.com. You can also choose a name that would be relevant to your business. 

Gogo, a company that provides internet services in flight, has the domain name gogoair.com. Using Gogo.com instead of gogoair.com as their domain name may not have identified to the consumer what services the company provides. The services may not be obvious, but at least we know that it has something to do with flight. They may have chosen to gogointernet.com; however that is too general. If you ask me, that sounds to me like an on the go internet service provider for example on a bus or train, but I definitely would not have thought about a plane. 

Memorability

Your domain name needs to be something that is easy to remember. In most cases, the shorter the better because they are easier to remember. A good idea is to use acronyms; if we go back to our example Los Angeles Cleaning Services, you can choose LASC.com. In the case of Radio MT Lebanon, the website is rmlfm.com. It uses acronyms, and specifies the type of industry by adding fm making it easy to remember, and informative.

Usability

Your website needs to be used in a way that will help bring customers to your business. Think about this way, when you are opening a brick and mortar you will look for the most strategic location and use it. You generally wouldn’t pick the store that is tucked into a building that hardly anyone can see. The same goes for websites, you need to pick a domain name that is not hidden by any obstacles.

You want to make sure that nothing is blocking potential customers from reaching your site. For example you might want to avoid using hyphens or any special characters because they make it harder for your customer to get to your site. You may want to avoid using two words that begin and end with the same letter. If word one ends with “e” word two begins with “e”, then the person typing in the email may not get to your site because they drop one of the letters. 

Tips for domain names

Buy the different variations of your domain name so that others can’t take them, and have it redirect back your site incase they type one of the variations. That way they will still end up at your business. 

If the name you want is not available, try contacting the owner. You may be able to buy it from them. You can find them through a WHOIS search through GoDaddy or through WHOIS.net.

Whatever you decide to go with, make sure it is something that you want to stick with your company for a long time.