How To Choose a Good Domain Name

Ah, the almighty quest for just the right domain name. You want it to be clear, easy to type and easy to remember. Here are some tips for how to do that.

Likely, your domain name will be your company, business, or project name. So, the first thing is to choose a name you're happy with. If you have a unique name, you will have a better chance of finding a matching domain name. I'm also a big fan of double entendres, word plays and puns. This is a useful tool: www.makewords.com

Most of the short, one-word domain names are taken, (there are still some out there, I'm sure, but they're sparse). So, there is a bit of debate out there about the length of domain names. It's best practice to keep your domain short. But, in my opinion, it's ok to have a domain name with a few words in it. 16 characters is probably a good maximum length.

www.sunwisedesign.ca
www.marketingpilgrim.com

If your company name is long, you may want to choose a few words from it and make those your domain name: Example: West Coast Pacific Gadgets

www.westcoastpacific.com

You want a name that will be easy for people to spell. It should be descriptive to your audience, making it clear right away what it is you do.

julmass.com is not as clear as juliemassage.com


Another option is to shorten a long name with an acronym. This will work best if your acronym has some kind of meaning.

www.leero.com

Something with a lot of consonants that don't flow well together is not going to be memorable.

www.aekpt.com

I would use these sparingly. If www.mydomain.com is taken, you can try:

www.my-domain.com

My rule of thumb is to keep it down to one hyphen. More and it becomes a pain to type.

Domain names with a mixture of full words and abbreviations are confusing. Once your brain is reading a word, it will read the abbreviations as words too. This is confusing and not memorable. Example: West Island Volunteer Bureau.

www.wivolunteer.ca

Something else to be careful about is creating words you didn't intend by placing words together. Example: Bass Experts.

www.bassexperts.com

Choosing an extension is also important. If you cater specifically to a region, then a regional suffix is appropriate, (.ca for Canada; .au for Australia, etc). If you run a non-profit organization, registering a .org will denote this right away.

For a business, plain old .com is the best choice. You may also want to register a regional suffix as well, if they're both available.

If the domain you want is not available as a .com, you can try .net, but I would do this as a last resort simply because .com is what people think of first.

I would avoid the new generation of extensions like .tv, .name, unless it relates directly to your name. If you run a television show, for example, using .tv could work. Otherwise, in my opinion it just says to people, we couldn't find a good .com, so we're using this cheap one instead.

Whatever you choose, make sure you will be happy with it. Once your site is established with a name, you will potentially lose the audience you've already attracted if you suddenly change your name midway.

Watch How To Register Your Own Domain Name.