Picking the right domain name for your website is very important when starting a new website, especially because you lose your search engine ranking if you change it later on. If you’re considering a domain name for a new website, be sure to choose wisely.
Choose a Name that Matches Your Brand
Your domain name is often the first impression your customers will have of your website, so you want it to be something good. When brainstorming domain name possibilities, there are two different domain naming methods to consider.
Use Your Business Name
Using your business name as your domain name is great for large, well-known businesses. Consider Walmart. Wouldn’t it seem strange if they didn’t have the walmart.com domain name?
On the other hand, if your business name is Feitcher Lawnmowing Services, LLC, your customers might not expect you to necessarily have your business name as a domain name.
Consider how long and easy to spell your business name is when leaning toward this option. You don’t want your customers struggling to type in your domain name.
Use Your Product or Service
A great way to be remembered for what you do is to include your most important product or service in your domain name. Consider wecleantoday.com for a cleaning company.
The downside to this method is that your business name, which you want to be remembered by, isn’t obviously in the domain name. On the other hand, if customers remember the domain name easier, maybe that’s better than if they remember your business name anyway. This is especially true if your business name is hard to spell.
Other Options
You could also try using a combination of the two options. Perhaps the initials of the business followed by a keyword about the business. Such as hmcmowing.com for a business named Howard Mowing Company. For a local brick-and-mortar business, consider adding your city’s name to the domain name, like mowingdenver.com. (Just make sure you won’t be expanding or moving to another city anytime soon!)
Keywords in your domain name don’t have much SEO benefit, but they may make your domain name more memorable. If it’s a tough call, pick two or three domain names and ask other people for their favorite.
Avoid Keywords that Won’t Apply to You
Avoid adding keywords to your domain that are so specific they might not make sense for your business at a later date. For example, if your business may branch out into other states in the next few years, maybe avoid putting the keyword Chicago in your domain name.
Consider Your Customers
Consider what your customers might think of a domain name before making the purchase. What kind of domain name would your customers expect? What kind might shock them? Should you go for a professional-sounding domain name, or something laid-back?
Keep in mind what your industry standard for domain names is. If you’re a law firm, you probably won’t find many of your competitors with a domain like fallguys.com! However, as a candy shop it might be totally fine to have a whimsical domain like delishcandy.com.
Remember to also consider what generations of people are your primary customers. Older generations may prefer simple, professional sounding domain names. While younger generations might be fine with more slang.
Be careful not to accidentally use a slang word you don’t mean to, especially with younger generations. For example, apparently BTO now means Bathroom Time Off!
Choose the Right TLD (Top Level Domain)
The TLD (top level domain) is the last part of your domain name. You might know them as .com, .org, or .net. These examples are all well-known TLD’s, but there are hundreds more options to choose from. Should you buy a domain name with the TLD .biz? What about .org?
Pick a TLD That Makes Sense
The first thing you should consider about a TLD before you decide on it is if it even applies to your website. Avoid using a TLD that would confuse your customers. For example, a .org TLD is usually used by charitable organizations.
Although .com is technically for commercial websites, it’s often used as the universal domain name for any kind of website. Many TLDs are up to interpretation by design.
Try .com First
.com domain names are becoming more and more rare. If you can get one that works for your business, get it, because .com domain names are the most memorable domain names, and therefore the ideal TLD to use.
.com domain names will look better on your business cards and will be less confusing to customers when you tell them the domain name over the phone. (But be sure to follow the domain name best practices listed below.)
Consider the “New” TLDs
The future of the Internet is likely going to use more of the colorful TLDs out there, like .clothing, .builders, .shop, .xyz, and so on. As available .com domains become more and more rare (and expensive), other domains will gain popularity to allow the Internet to keep growing.
If marys.coffee is hard for your customers to remember today, it’s just because it isn’t common to see the .coffee TLD yet (although it has been around since 2013).
When Not to Use .com
Generally, .com is the overall best choice. This is because it is more memorable, and the longer the Internet is around the more valuable it will become. There are valid reasons to choose another TLD, however.
If most of your customers will be finding you through search engines like Google and Bing, it doesn’t matter as much if your domain name is easy to remember today or not. In that case, I would recommend going with a TLD that tells what you sell, like .clothing, if a good .com isn’t available.
Most customers that don’t have to type in the domain name probably won’t even notice if your domain is daisy.shop, daisyshop.com, or daisy.flowers. Once they are on your website, it will be the website itself which will dictate whether visitors see you as a legitimate business or not.
I would also recommend a TLD besides .com if you just can’t get a good domain name under the .com TLD. It’s better to have something short and valid for your business than something complicated or just down-right rediculous. For example, which is better, gozachsbodyshoprockford.com, or zachsbodyshop.car?
Spelling Considerations when Choosing Your Domain Name
Certain spelling decisions can make your domain names harder to remember, or maybe even worse, just look very unprofessional. Here is a quick list of spelling choices to avoid.
- Avoid long domain names. Try to keep all domain names under 15 characters. Longer domain names are harder to remember and take longer to spell, which tempts users to just skip them.
- Avoid using dashes, ever. This makes it harder for your customer to remember your domain name, which could lead to your customers visiting your competitor’s website on accident. Consider buildingamerica.com and building-america.com. Which website do you think gets typed in more?
- Avoid beginning your domain name with “the”. A “the”, as in thefacebook.com, is easy for customers to forget when typing the domain name in. The only exception to this is when your business begins with “the”.
- Avoid word combinations that, when put together, sound like something else. For example, is https://bunprofessionalsnow.com supposed to be “B[e] Unprofessional Snow .com”, or “Bun Professionals Now .com”? Especially look for word combinations that can be mistaken for offensive or embarrassing words if read wrong.
- Avoid word combinations that put multiple vowels together. This will also keep your customers from seeing words in your domain name you didn’t intend.
- Avoid words that are hard to spell or pronounce. Again, with business names, if your customers might not know how to spell Schnell Cityscape Errectors Incorporated, consider other words that are easier to spell.
- Avoid word combinations that result in the same letter ending one word and beginning the next. For example, amazinggrazing.com sounds nice, but it may not be clear if there should be two G’s or one.
- Don’t use a domain name that is a registered trademark of another company. This just risks the domain name being taken away from you once it becomes more well known.
- Avoid domains that are too close to a real competitor’s domain name. You don’t want to be confused for your competitor. Also, again, you don’t want your competitor to be able to claim you’re using their trademarks, if they have one for their domain name.
Ways to Purchase a Domain Name
You can purchase domain names from any registrar website, like NameSilo or DreamHost. Normally you would look for a domain name that isn’t taken yet, but there are also options for purchasing a domain that is still taken.
There are many domains out there that someone is holding onto, but is willing to sell for the right price. One place to purchase these is through the NameSilo marketplace Here you can take part in auctions, or look for domains to purchase.
Sometimes, like a house mortgage, someone doesn’t keep up with their yearly domain payments. When this happens, the domain name is put into a pending deletion process. You can bid on domains that are pending delete through NameSilo’s CatchClub Auctions.
(This is actually the main reason why when you purchase a domain name through me, I make sure you don’t forget about paying for your domain. I also offer a free domain name with any hosting plan that you pay for in yearly payments.)
Placing a bid down on a domain that is pending delete makes you more likely to get it when the deletion goes through. Otherwise if no one bids on it, you could just scoop it up at the regular price once the deletion is final in about a week.
How Much Should You Spend on a Domain Name?
The answer to this is really up to you. Consider what a perfect or even ideal domain name is worth to your business.
Domain names are an investment. If you need to purchase a domain name from another business that is the perfect fit, it may be worth it to pay a one-time fee of $5,000. On the other hand, if money is tight you may not be able to go that high.
Startups have another option. They can watch the domain names pending deletion and grab the first one that works for them. This can be cost effective, but will require checking NameSilo’s CatchClub Auction once a week. Also there is no guarantee of finding what you want.
At the end of the day, the price you are willing to pay is up to you. Just remember that you domain is the first part of your website customers will see.
Buy Misspellings and Alternate TLD’s Too
Don’t forget to look into purchasing misspellings to your chosen domain name. For example, my domain name is growplugins.com, but I’ve also bought variants of that, including grillplugins.com, as some people have misheard my business name in the past.
You might buy misspellings for two different reasons.
- Customers might accidentally misspell your domain name, and instead of ending up on a blank screen and thinking it’s your fault because your website is offline, you want to redirect them to your home page.
- Anyone who wants to trick your customers into giving away valuable data might purchase a misspelling of your domain name so people will go to their domain instead of yours. This is a common phishing practice, and is dangerous for you and your customers.
While you can’t purchase every variant close to your domain name, it is possible to target two to five that are the most common accidental misspellings, or otherwise look like your domain in a phishing email.
Get Help When Needed
Choosing a domain name is hard work. Let me help you pick one that will stay true to your brand, yet be easy to remember.
Don’t forget to ask me how to get a free domain!
