Choosing a domain name

What’s your business domain name and how did you choose it? Was it the one you wanted? Perhaps the domain name you wanted was taken and you had to settle for something less than impressive. 

Launching your own a website is an important way of entering the global marketplace. Most experts agree that when choosing a domain name, shorter and simpler names are best. Keep it short and sweet, and if you can get it, get the dot-com version, because people are still more impressed by that than the UK or EU domains.

But since most of the shorter domain names are already taken, people have to choose longer ones and this is where they frequently need help.

Keep it simple

When it comes to picking a domain name, ‘creative spelling’ says you’re annoying and that you think your potential customers are psychic. Any words you would have to spell out to a client are also bad (they need to be intuitive) and you’re suggesting to potential clients that you don’t care about how they find you. But the internet is all about finding and being found and if you want to be found, you need a domain that says what you do.

For instance, if you were an office cleaning service business based in London, you should always try CleanerLondon.com or OfficeCleaning.com first. If they are gone, add a modifier. BestLondonCleaners.com for instance, allows you to tell everyone what you do and where you do it. It also says you are the best, of course.

If you want to ensure that people don’t get confused between you and another company, buy all of the available extensions if you can. 

Your domain name is your internet trading name, it doesn’t matter what your real trading name is to people, as they will call your business by the domain name from now on.

Room for growth

There’s also a trick to choosing the right name. If you’re very specific (eg BestLondonCleaners), you can’t easily add a few pages about your photocopying business, for example. So, counter to what was said earlier, you may wish to choose something that allows you to expand. Think about Amazon.com for instance. The name Amazon has nothing to do with books, DVDs or any of the things it sells. So when Amazon started to sell garden furniture, it wasn’t restricted.

Clearly there are two main choices to naming your domain. You can either choose something broad enough to encompass future expansion or something very specific and targeted to what you do. Broad allows you more creativity with the name, but specific has greater SEO (search engine optimisation) value and helps promote your name directly in the URL window.

Image matters

Finally, consider your professional image. What you call yourself may be your professional online trading domain for a long time. Building up a reputation and switching domains later could be tricky. So, your domain name must send out the right message about your business. It must present to your customers the image that comes to mind when they think of your organisation. This will help them find you online, as well as help to maintain your public image.