Choosing the correct name for your domain is not only critical but that is a great business sense, this should be the first step before the design even, this is so as your website is your digital business card. It is worth every bit of effort that you put in choosing a domain name the is memorable unforgettable and represents you and what you stand for in every form. 

With over  350 million registered domain names across all Top-Level Domains (TLD), choosing the best one for your business tells you apart from your competitors and also says if you are only being visited or those visits are converted to leads and profitable leads. For businesses of all sizes, this can be a tedious process and may require hours but if you are thinking days to have that which reflects who you are or your products and services go right ahead.

 

Here are a few tips that we invite you to consider when choosing your domain name:

  • Make .com Your Preferred Choice
  • Make It Memorable
  • Domain Name Generators Assist 
  • Owned Legally
  • Buying Existing Domains
  • Domain Registrar
  • Locking Your Domain 

 

Make .com Your Preferred Choice

We do advise our customers/clients to go for domain name extension .com once available. There are definitely others such as .org, .info, .uk, .ru just name a few. 

So using the trusty .com domain extension versus the other TLDs makes it almost always the correct thing to do. Reasons for this may be; there is an ongoing familiarity with the wider internet user population with domain extension .com. Not sure why this is so but, once a website name is given without a domain extension it is assumed most times that the extension is .com.

The .com TLD on average is used by 40.90% of registered domain users seen in data received on Domain Name Stat.

Though highly recommended there are times when the extension .com is either not available or not applicable, for example on the German Market recommends .de if .com is not available.

 

Make It Memorable

Branding is one of the most vital aspects of your marketing as we need to ensure your website is able to provide your long-term success. In having a brandable or marketable domain name some of the factors we should take a look at include but not limited to; it’s uniqueness, the ability to be easily memorized, having a name that sounds trustworthy and easily pronounced.

Remember shorter is better, try eliminating underscores and symbols in general, if possible keep the characters list than sixteen (16) characters that are not inclusive of the TLDs or domain extension.

In all possible cases avoid using numbers or symbols if it is not apart of the name of the brand. An example of a brand with numbers is rue21 domain name rue21.com. 

 

Domain Generators Assist

Honestly, we exhaust our options and still do not have a solid name sometimes, in this case, we suggest auto-generating your domain name.

There are various tools that may help in easing the burden of creating your domain name. These tools require the keyword of your business name, in doing this it provides you with that which is available a not avail.  Some of the tools that may help are:

Lean Domain Search

GoDaddy

Business Name Generator by Shopify

Nameboy

 

Owned Legally

We advise that adequate research is done into finalizing the name as infringement can be bad for business. Though this may not be intentional infringing on a trademarked name can happen. 

Researching the name does not have to be an extensive process it can be simply typing the name in the URL of your browser.  

 

Buying Existing Domain

There are various factors that will lead one to purchase an existing (expired) domain name over creating a new domain portfolio. From experience, I was looking for a particular name and that was already taken, however, it was expired and up for grabs and a bit more costly but it was worth it. 

So you don’t make any mistakes I did, the most important thing to do is to check on the history of the domain name before purchasing. We must face the fact that the expired domain name you are about to be the new owner of has a history and you can never be sure of the history.

The advantage of reclaiming an expired domain name is that history can boost ratings on Google seeing that you do not have to start from scratch.

The disadvantage is that you are also unsure of the history as it may feature non-kosher events (gambling, porn,…) this can have you banned from Google entirely.  

The best part is that there are tools to help us along the way, two such tools are bannedcheck.com and ismywebsitepenalized.com, these are to be considered helpers.  

 

Domain Registrar

Domain Registrars are companies that help you to register your domain and gives you full access to it. Going with a trustworthy and respectable company is a key factor. 

Here are a few of registrar companies that we recommend: 

 

Locking Domain

I know this may be a bit alarming for having such a topic, but there are numerous cases of domain hijacking happening.

There are several ways in which your domain can be stolen or hijacked, but, the most common ones are persuasion of giving up your password through phishing or hacking your password. 

If someone gets ahold of your domain account through either of these processes they are able to do whatever they wish with your account. 

Some registrars offer a feature that allows you to keep your account in lock status this prevents the transfer of domain through any unauthorized step. What this means is that the DNS or registration information cannot be configured unless the owner unlocks the domain name.