Choosing an Effective Domain Name

Your domain name is the beginning of establishing your presence online. The process of picking the “right” domain name takes time, but a well thought out domain name will serves you well into the future. Here are some easy strategies you can use to select an effective domain name:

1. What’s the purpose of the domain name you are selecting?

Are you planning on using this name as the main website for your company, as a one page sales funnel or just to have personalised email?

If the domain name will be your primary business website, try and find the closest version to your company name that you can. Acronyms are great for short hand, but not so great as a domain name unless you are a well established, instantly recognisable brand or your target audience knows you by that acronym.

If the purpose of a domain is for a one page sales funnel, think about how you might promote the site. If your promotion strategy is PPC, or “pay per click”, where you are buying keywords from Google, for example. You want to be sure that the info displayed there is compelling enough to get someone to click and visit your site. So, for example, something like GetMoreClients.com has a compelling title that could be a redirect funnel for an advertising agency.

2. Brainstorm a list of ideas of the problem you’re trying to solve or the solution that you have. 

A domain name that clearly indicates what you do, what problem that you solve, or the solution that you have will give a visitors a fairly clear picture of what is your website. What I typically do is go to my domain name page www.smallwebspace.com.au/domains and start typing in the names I’m brainstorming until I come up with 3 or 4 that are available.

If the domain name that you type in isn’t available it will come up with 10 or so alternates for you to consider.

3. For SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) purposes, it helps to have some of your keywords in your domain name. 

Before buying your domain, make a list of keywords that someone might use to find you online. This list could include your industry, your target market or niche, a problem you target or a solution that you can offer.

4. Keep it short and sweet (without acronyms). 

I haven’t always followed my own rules here, but if the domain name is going to be your primary domain where your email will also be hosted, you want your domain name to be as short, catchy, and memorable as possible. After a few times of spelling out your lengthy email address, you’ll come to appreciate the beauty of a short domain name. Your domain name can contain up to 67 letters and numbers and can contain no special characters other than hyphens. Although I would encourage you not to have one of this length.

5. Purchase your your given name as a domain name. 

I typically tell my clients not to try and brand their given name as their business name, as that takes many years, much money, and lots of hard work to have the name recognition of Oprah, for example. However, it still pays to purchase your given name as a domain name, as well as any common misspellings of your name. Once you’ve purchased your name as a domain, you can redirect it to your primary website. This means that when someone types in a domain, they land at the website to which you pointed that domain.

6. Buy the .COM.AU & .COM version of the domain name you decide on.

 When people hear a domain name, they “hear” .COM whether it’s .NET or .BIZ or .ORG or whatever. If you are registering the .COM version of a domain for your business, you may also want to secure variations of the name, alternate spellings, common misspellings, and the .NET and .ORG versions of your domain and repoint them to your main site to keep them out of the hands of your competitors. You can also go broke very quickly by purchasing all of these variations, so exercise some restraint in your purchases and don’t go crazy with purchasing every single variation of your domain name.

7. Get someone else to look at the domain name you are thinking of purchasing written down.

 Sometime when you are close to your business name that is all you will see. But another set of eyes may see something else. For example you have an educational organisation that helps teacher connect with each other called Teachers Talking. Now put that into a domain name in lower case: teacherstalking.edu.au, has a whole new meaning.

Your domain name is the beginning of the establishment of your presence online. Take some time and put some thought into the process so that the domain name serves you well in the years to come, and is an effective tool for helping you get more clients online.