A domain name is the address on which your website will reside (i.e. www.mydomainname.com) and the address to which you will receive emails (i.e. mrsjones@mydomainname.com).
Assuming you run a business, you would want your domain name to tie in with your company name where possible. It’s logical that a company called “Edge of the Web Ltd” (that’s us by the way!) would have the domain edgeoftheweb.co.uk or edgeoftheweb.com.
choose your name wisely
Some companies like to use domain names related to the product or service they provide (B&Q use diy.com), which can have a beneficial effect on marketing online, but doesn’t make a great deal of sense to customers. People’s attention is precious and asking them to remember multiple names to reference your business is a bit greedy.
Of course, not every domain name that we would like to use is still available. The domain name land rush happened 10 years ago now, and whilst some great opportunities for short and catchy domain names do still exist, they are fewer and further between.
Quite often when starting a new business or project I will perform both a company name and domain name search at the same time, to ensure I can tie in my branding.
.co.uk and .com are usually the best suffixes to target. .co.uk makes it clear that you are a UK business, and .com is better for multi-national audiences.
Keep you domain name as short as possible – a memorable domain name is a big help to your customers. There is nothing more annoying than try to email sue@my-stupid-long-company-domain-name-that-nobody-can-remember.wasteoftime.co.uk
If you are already tied to a brand name and want to get a similar domain name to match, consider trying the following:
Consider alternative domain suffixes, such as .net, .org, .tv, .info, .biz. Whilst they are not as easy to remember or popular as .co.uk or .com, you can still get some pretty good names to compensate.
Consider adding a regional variation to your domain name such as mydomain-bristol.com or mycompanyuk.com.
Consider using hyphens between words or letters, such as my-domain.co.uk or my-domain-uk.com.
There are occasions where you may want to depart from a company name and go for a keyphrase targeted domain name. This is relevant if you are planning a major online marketing / pr campaign. When your website acquires links from other websites (Google’s favourite method for ranking websites) the words that make up a link are taken into account. If you have “southwest-electrician.com” there is a pretty fair chance you’ll eventually rank pretty high on Google (yahoo, msn, etc) when somebody types in “southwest electrician”.
If you are not planning a major online marketing offensive, don’t waste your time unless you already have a keyphrase targeted company name. The pain you will cause your customers (“what was their website again?!?!) usually offsets the benefit of ranking well for one keyphrase (unless it’s a real biggy like “money.com”, but all those domains are long gone.)
So a final summary of key points to remember:
1) keep your domain name relevant to your business name
2) keep it as short as possible
3) searching for a domain name and company name at the same time can save some pain later
Photos courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons license from users malias
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