Choosing
a domain name doesn't always come easy. There are a number of things to
consider when choosing a domain name. But first ....
What is a domain name?
Your domain name is the 'address' of your web site on the Internet.
Your domain name can make or break your success so it is essential to
pick the right one.
This
brings up the first consideration for a domain name - Do you use a
domain name that matches your business or do you choose a name that
'brands' your online presence?
Establishing a 'brand' name online and using that brand name helps people remember YOU and your online business. Take Amazon (www.amazon.com) and Barnes & Noble (www.barnesandnoble.com)
as examples. You wouldn't know that they were online bookstores from
their domain names BUT you know they are online book stores because of
the 'branding' and the reputation they have built up. Remember branding
happens over a period of time and isn't instant.
Amazon or Barnes & Noble could easily have chosen www.onlinebooks.com
to match their type of business rather than choose the names they did.
There is no hard and fast rule, it just depends on what your long term
business plans/goals are.
Ok, now you have to decide what extension to use. Notice with Amazon's domain name that they use www.amazon.com.The extension is the .com part
The
most common and popular extension is .com which is the reason why the
media talk about the 'dotcom' bubble. You think about it - when you are
trying to remember a domain name you will more than likely try
www.domainname.com before you try any other extension. The .com
extension is always the one you should try to get, if at all possible.
If you can't get the .com name then the next most popular would be the
.net extension. Besides the .com and .net extensions, there are quite a
few others like
.biz
.us
.tv
.org
.name
.ws
.info
Some extensions are reserved for specific uses like .edu which is reserved for educational institutions.
The next big question is whether you should use Hyphenations in your domain name.
I
have seen many discussions online about the pros and cons of hyphenated
domain names. For example should your online bookstore domain name be
www.onlinebookstore.com or online-bookstore.com
You
need to consider how readable the name is, how will it look on your
business cards and letterheads and how easy would it be to remember as
well. The biggest pro for using hyphenated domain names is that the
search engines are able to read the domain name easily when the domain
name is hyphenated.
In
the onlinebookstore example the search engine would just read the
'online' segment of the domain name whereas with the online-bookstore
example the search engine would read both 'online' and 'bookstore'. This
would help to get your bookstore listed in the search engines as
'online' 'bookstore' rather than just 'online'.
Finally,
to register a domain name means that you need to find a domain
registrar. There are many choices of companies through which you can
register your domain name.
Please make sure you find a reputable company that allows the following features -
- Allows the domain to be registered in YOUR name, not theirs. You want the domain name to belong to YOU
-
How easy is it to transfer to another domain registrar if you wish to.
You are entitled to move your domain registration to another provider.
-
How easy is it to 'manage' your own domains. You will need to be able
to configure the Domain Name Servers (DNS) of your domain to point to
the web host provider.
Be careful and do a search for reputable registrars BEFORE you select one.
Some well known registrars include, but are not restricted to -
