A domain name is the unique address for a website where composed of a website name and a domain name extension. This address enabled visitors to find your site easily instead of using its internet protocol (IP) address. Every domain names have their own corresponding IP addresses and point to the specific web servers that host the websites.
When a user key in a domain name into a browser, it scan for the correlated IP address through a global network of Domain Name System (DNS) servers.Here are some of the steps for you to choose a perfect website domain name for your business or project:
Step to choose perfect website domain name #1: Pick The Top Level Domain Extensions
A Top-Level Domain extension is found after the name of your site or at the end of URL. The common examples of the extension include “.com”, “.org”, and “.net”. The “.com” domain extension is the most popular extension compare to other which dominated up to 37% of all domains according to research from Domain Name Stat.
Hence, picking the right domain extension is extremely important depend on the type of service or organization. For commercial use, the “.com” domain extension is also the best choice when you want to capture customer interest as it shapes how visitors perceive your brand even before have a look into your homepage. The “.com” domain name is the most familiar and easiest to remember but usually has limited availability. It’s the safest bet if your website has a “.com” domain extension as it will probably do better compare to other domain extensions.
However, if you can’t secure your domain extension of choice, you can try domain extensions with a “.net” and “.org” and avoid weird extensions like “.club”, “.space”, “.pizza” and so on.
Step to choose perfect website domain name #2: Brandable Over Generic
Brand is the foundation of your company where your visitors will find, remember, and share to others. A brandable domain name is typically a non-keyword name and do not have any particular descriptive meaning. Google, Ebay, Facebook are some of the examples of brandable domain name.
On the other hand, generic domain name is usually stuffed with keywords or set of words that can be commonly found in the dictionary. Examples of generic domain name are videogame.com or toothpaste.com which made it hard for user to remember. You won’t hear anyone talking about how amazing “videogame.com” is as the word videogame will increase the competition and make it blend in even more.
Therefore, creating a creative and brandable domain name are always better than generic. In order to find a more brandable domain name, you can make up your own catchy, new words just like how Google did or you can try to find interesting words that fit your brand. If you are not creative enough, you can always use the domain name generators tools that can be found in a lot of websites.
Step to choose perfect website domain name #3: Short Is Better Than Long
In general, when it comes to the length of your domain, shorter is better. First, they’re easier to remember and faster to type. Therefore, they are more likely to support a positive UX.
According to study from Domain Registration.com, the most common name length is around 12 characters. Try to made the domain name as short as possible in range of 6-14 characters. There are high chance that short domain name is not available as it is taken long time ago and it can be sold for very high price. If you can’t find something short, make it brandable.
Using a short domain open up opportunity for more people especially those who browsing the internet on mobile devices. Using a long domain name can make you lose mobile users as they get blindsided by autocorrect.
In addition, you tend to scare off visitors if you are using an overly long URL. Other than that, your users might get suspicious if you domain is too complicated with a lot of unnecessary keywords.
Step to choose perfect website domain name #4: Make Sure It’s Easy To Type
Whenever you look into the world most popular websites such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Yahoo, CNN and so on, one of the similarities that they share is that they’re all easy to spell.
Make sure the spelling of your domain names is not complicated and very easy to understand where you do not have to explain it again and again to your visitors. Therefore, your visitor will not accidentally end up into different website due to mistype your website domain name.
You can verify your website potential domain names by conduct a simple survey such as ask people to spell out the domain names. You may need to simplify it if there are quite a few people struggle to spell it.
Step to choose perfect website domain name #5: Make Sure It’s Easy To Pronounce
Besides making sure your domain name is short and can be spelled easily, it is also important to make sure its pronunciation is easy and can roll off the tip of anyone tongue. This can make your website easier for you and your visitors to share by word-of-mouth with friends and potential customers.
You can conduct similar survey as the ‘spelling’ by write down your domain name and ask several people to pronounce your it. You may need to simplify it If more than a few people struggle to pronounce it.
Therefore, always be mindful that in order to enable your domain name to be passed along easily by you and others, you need to make sure the domain name is easy to spell and pronounce.
Step to choose perfect website domain name #6: Avoid Hyphens and Numbers
Try to avoid hyphens and numbers in your domain name as it is not following the rules that the domain name should be easy to spell and pronounce. You will end up having hard time to explain and share your website with hyphens and numbers in it.
For example, if Facebook is spell as Face–Book where hyphen is between the ‘Face’ and the ‘Book’, it might not be able to spread so rapidly in the world. Try to keep your domain names to letters only at the same time it can be spell out and pronounced smoothly and avoid hyphens and numbers at all cost.
Step to choose perfect website domain name #7: Using “Niche” Keywords That Fit Your Website
Keywords can help improve your SEO but be careful when you attempt to use it as keywords can make your website turned into generic domain name. If you use keywords, put them at the beginning of your domain. That's where they become the strongest for your ranking. You can find keywords using tools like Google Keyword Planner and Keywordtool.io.
Step to choose perfect website domain name #8: Think Long-Term Over Short-Term
If you decide to switch domains in the future, there will be costs in fees, branding, and SEO rankings. In short, it's a big pain! Think long-term when choosing a domain. For example, if you're helping a company optimize their website for her SEO, you might choose a domain name like ‘OptimizedSEO.com‘.
If you may expand into more general digital marketing services such as email marketing, PPC, etc. in the future, we recommend that you reconsider your domain name. You don't want to commit to a specific niche if you think you can grow from it. So, keep your long-term vision in mind when choosing your domain name.
Step to choose perfect website domain name #9: Check for Trademarked Or Already Used
Before using a particular domain name, check to see if the name is available on social media sites and if a trademark has already been registered against that name. Ideally, you should use the same name for your domain and social network to build your brand. This creates familiarity and makes it easier for visitors, fans and customers to find you on the web. Avoid legal issues. Stay away from names that already have a trademark.
You can use tools like Knowem to check potential domain name, social networks and brands. Search for the potential domain names you prefer and check whether it is available on the popular social networks and if there's already a registered trademark for that name. If it is taken, consider tweaking it so that you can create a unique social media profile.
Step to choose perfect website domain name #10: Use Domain Name Generators When Stuck
At this point, you should at least have a general idea of some words that you can put in your domain and avoid using hyphen and numbering and trademarked words.
If you still can’t find idea for your domain names through all the steps above, this is where domain name generators come into play. These generators can turn ideas into fresh and usable domains. You can try out these domain name generators:
