What's in a Name? Choose Your Domain Name Wisely | iNet inSights - Internet Answers that Give you the Advantage

What’s in a Name? Choose Your Domain Name Wisely

11th May 2009

Your website’s domain name e.g. www.yourdomainname.co.uk says a lot about who you are and what your business does and is the ‘location address’ for your website on the web.

So, if your business is looking to get online for the first time with its own website, it’s worth putting a lot of thought into the choice of domain name to use. Here are my top tips for choosing a domain name for your website.

Make it Memorable
Your domain name forms your website address and must be easy to remember if your customers see it in adverts or hear it from colleagues. Avoid complex names and initials unless they are really obvious. For example the initials in the domain ‘bbc.co.uk ’ are obvious in their meaning to most people, but unless your business has the brand recognition that the BBC enjoys, initials are best avoided.
Short and Sweet
The maximum characters you should use for your domain is twenty. The shorter the better, with many people saying 10 is the maximum to go for. Anything over this can be difficult to remember, and easily misspelt. For the same reason avoid using hyphens and numbers; both are known to cause confusion.
Choose your Extension Wisely
The ‘must have’ domain extensions are .co.uk and .com. If you can’t get either of these, it’s worth considering renaming your website or even your company, to fit in with a .com and .co.uk domain name pair that you can obtain. The type of domain extension you use might be influenced by type of website you plan to operate. For example, many people have come to expect certain types of websites to have certain extensions. For example .org.uk extensions are used by UK based, non-profit organisations and .net extensions are often used by technology or internet related companies.
Spelling Rules KO
A difficult to spell domain name could cause you problems as a misspelt name may drive visitors towards your competitor’s website. If you have a difficult to spell name, consider registering the possible misspellings of your main domain name and even the Americanised versions of the word if available. For example if you register the domain “thetyreshop.com” consider also registering its Americanised equivalent “thetireshop.com”.
I Wanna Tell You a Story
Good domain names tell a story and are descriptive. One method is to use your company name as Tescos have done with ‘tesco.com’. Another angle is to use a phrase, unrelated to your company name; but instead describes what your business or website is all about. For example ‘diy.com’ as used by B&Q, is superb as it describes exactly what they do i.e. “do-it-yourself”. Added to that it’s short, easy to remember, easy to spell and say. Yes, this domain uses initials, however the brand recognition of B&Q in the UK is so great, as is usage of the phrase ‘DIY’ in everyday English that they can get away with it.

Check the availability of your required .co.uk domains at www.nominet.org.uk and other domain types including .com ones at www.internic.net/whois