• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Matt Doyle | Elated Communications

Web and WordPress Development

  • About Me
  • Blog
    • Design & Multimedia
      • Photoshop
      • Paint Shop Pro
      • Video & Audio
    • Online Marketing
      • E-Commerce
      • Social Media
    • Running a Website
      • WordPress
      • Apache
      • UNIX and Linux
      • Using FTP
    • Web Development
      • HTML
      • CSS
      • JavaScript
      • PHP
      • Perl and CGI Scripting
  • Services
    • WordPress Websites
    • WordPress Maintenance Package
    • WordPress Security Package
    • WordPress Turbo Tune‑Up
    • For Designers & Agencies
  • Portfolio
  • Contact Me
  • Hire Me
Home / Blog / Running a Website / Choosing a Domain Name

Choosing a Domain Name

3 August 2009 / 6 Comments

Choosing a good domain name for your website can be tough. After all, most of the short, easy-to-remember domain names have been taken, right?

Don’t worry. With a little thought, and a few tips and tricks up your sleeve, you can find a great domain name for your site today. This article gets you started!

Choose a domain name that’s easy to use

It helps to have a domain name that is easy for people to:

  • remember
  • pronounce, and
  • spell.

This is especially important if you plan to market your website offline (in a flyer or magazine, for example). An easy-to-pronounce name also helps with word-of-mouth marketing.

Of course, shorter names tend to be easier to remember, and most short domain names are already in use. However, with a bit of creativity and brainstorming (see below) you should be able to come up with a catchy, easy-to-spell name.

Avoid hyphens in the domain name

While hyphens in domain names are allowed (for example, my-great-domain.com), they are uncommon and can lead to confusion. If possible, go for the domain name without the hyphens (mygreatdomain.com).

If you want to make the individual words stand out better when writing the domain name, you can always capitalise the start of each word (MyGreatDomain.com). Domain names are not case sensitive.

Don’t limit yourself to .com domain names

.com domain names are the most sought after, so it can be hard to find a short, snappy .com name. However there are many other choices available, such as .net and .info, so don’t feel you have to limit yourself to .com.

It’s true that .com names have certain advantages — people will assume a domain name ends in .com if not told otherwise, and Web browsers often look for .com versions of domain names first. For example, if you type “example” into your browser’s address bar then the browser will probably look for www.example.com before www.example.net.

Despite the .com advantages, a .net or .info domain name can work well, as you have a far greater choice of available names. This can mean that you can grab that snappy, easy-to-remember name you want. Just don’t forget to include the .net (or other) suffix whenever you mention your domain name to people.

Keywords in domain names — a good idea?

If you need to drive a lot of search traffic to your site then it can help to have your main keywords in your domain name — especially if the keywords are highly competitive. For example, if your site sells dinky widgets then a domain name of AllDinkyWidgets.com is going to fare better than MyOnlineStore.com.

That said, having keywords in your domain name isn’t likely to make a huge difference to your search traffic. It’s nice to have, but if you already have a strong brand name or business name then it probably makes sense to base your domain name around your brand name, rather than around search keywords.

Find out more about improving your site’s search engine rankings in SEO for Beginners.

Country specific domain names

If your site caters mainly to an audience in a particular country then it can help to have a country specific domain. For example, if you’re running an online pet store that sells to the UK market then mypetstore.co.uk would do better than mypetstore.com. There are 2 main reasons for this:

  • UK shoppers will feel more comfortable buying products from a site that is obviously UK-based.
  • mypetstore.co.uk is more likely to appear in local searches than mypetstore.com. For example, if someone in the UK searched on google.co.uk for “pet store” then mypetstore.co.uk would probably appear higher in the search results.

Furthermore, there is generally less competition for country specific domain names, so you’ll probably find it easier to find a free .co.uk domain, say, than the equivalent .com domain.

Should your domain name be your brand name?

If you already have an existing business with a strong brand name then it makes sense to use this brand name for your domain name. If the domain name has been registered by someone else then you may be able to obtain the domain name from them.

If someone has registered your brand name just so they can sell it to you for a high price — a trick known as cybersquatting — then you may be able to claim the domain name through the UDRP process.

If you’re just starting out and you haven’t spent a lot of money promoting your business name or brand name then it may be easier to do things the other way round — get a good domain name that fits your topic or market, then name your business and website after the domain name.

Tips for brainstorming domain names

How can you come up with a good domain name that’s easy to remember and hasn’t been taken? Here are some ideas:

  • Write a list of words that are related to your website, topic, business, customers, products, and/or services. (A thesaurus can help here.)
  • Combine 2 or 3 common words together to produce a unique, memorable name (examples: phonecherry.com, widgetbear.com).
  • Try adding simple words to create a name that is available. For example, superwidget.com isn’t currently available, but mysuperwidget.com is.

Registering and setting up your domain name

Have you chosen your domain name? Congratulations! The next step is to register your domain name with a registrar and point the domain name to your website (and, possibly, your mail server). You can find out more in How to Set Up Your Own Domain Name.

Filed Under: Running a Website Tagged With: .com, .info, .net, brainstorming, brand name, choosing a domain name, country specific, easy to remember, hyphens, keywords, pronounce, registering a domain name, SEO, spell

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. john2010 says

    19 March 2010 at 7:58 am

    Amazing Article!
    really very good for my learning experience,i really appreciate the information you are offering
    Thanks!

    Reply
  2. jsobrier says

    23 March 2010 at 11:41 pm

    You can use a domain generator to find good suggestions: enter 1 or more keywords, and see what domains are availabe through different domain extesnions.

    Reply
  3. cat says

    25 March 2010 at 5:41 pm

    @jsobrier, Yes, that’s a fair point although some are more useful than others. I guess those that look at synonyms as well are the most useful. eg. http://www.nameboy.com

    Reply
  4. mauco says

    25 March 2010 at 9:50 pm

    It’s nice to know that there are organizations like the UDRP out there to curb the menace of cybersquatting. Thanks for the detailed article.

    Reply
  5. FletcherT says

    8 August 2011 at 3:23 pm

    Great article piece, it’s very difficult to decipher a domain name you want after the one you were targeting is already taken, even disheartening.

    Reply
  6. leonpot says

    21 January 2013 at 6:56 am

    I always choose a name which is short and sticky… and with sticky i mean it’s easy to remember 🙂

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

To include a block of code in your comment, surround it with <pre> ... </pre> tags. You can include smaller code snippets inside some normal text by surrounding them with <code> ... </code> tags.

Allowed tags in comments: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong> <pre> .

Primary Sidebar

Hire Matt!

Matt Doyle headshot

Need a little help with your website? I have over 20 years of web development experience under my belt. Let’s chat!

Matt Doyle - Codeable Expert Certificate

Hire Me Today

Call Me: +61 2 8006 0622

Stay in Touch!

Subscribe to get a quick email whenever I add new articles, free goodies, or special offers. I won’t spam you.

Subscribe

Recent Posts

  • Make a Rotatable 3D Product Boxshot with Three.js
  • Speed Up Your WordPress Website: 11 Simple Steps to a Faster Site
  • Reboot!
  • Wordfence Tutorial: How to Keep Your WordPress Site Safe from Hackers
  • How to Make Awesome-Looking Images for Your Website

Footer

Contact Matt

  • Email Me
  • Call Me: +61 2 8006 0622

Follow Matt

  • E-mail
  • Facebook
  • GitHub
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Copyright © 1996-2022 Elated Communications. All rights reserved.
Affiliate Disclaimer | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Service T&C | Credits