- Know your target audience / visitors and how they might relate to
your website. Choose domain names that you think clearly and succinctly
express your company (this will also depend on the impression you are
trying to convey about your website and your company). Think about how
you might search for your website and see how companies in a similar
line are using their domain names.
- Keep domain names short and simple and you'll make them memorable.
Remember that people may misspell your domain if it's too long and
complicated but that by registering different combination of domains
with various spellings you may catch wayward visitors trying an
otherwise incorrect spelling of your domain. If your domain contains
more than one word think about adding '-' between the words to make the
separation more obvious - it's easier for visitors to remember a domain
if they can recognise the individual words which make up the domain.
Acronyms are generally not a good idea - particularly if they are
complex like xwprn.com (would you remember that as a domain name?).
- Try and make your domain name as close to your company name as is
possible if your company name is already well established outside the
Internet. Many visitors may try to guess your domain name based on your
company name (e.g. www.yourcompanyname.com), and by increasing the
possibly of they finding it without having to resort to search
engines, you can increase your traffic.
- Try and register names with different extensions (e.g. .com and
.co.uk). Particularly if you are aiming at a regional audience as well
as a global one. If you are a UK based company then a .co.uk domain
will give your UK based audience the confidence that they are dealing
with a company 'close' to them as well as ensuring International
audiences are aware of the fact that you are a UK based company, while
a .com will ensure that you will attract casual visitors as much as
provide your site with an International profile. Remember also that if
you don't register a particular version of a domain, there is the
possibility that someone else will, and people may mistakenly visit
their domain rather than yours.
- Use words in your domains which can be visualised. You want someone
to remember your domains above all others and words like red, hot,
etc... can prove to be more memorable than simpler names but there is
the danger of over-doing it and names like easythis.com and
easythat.com can become tedious - adding to a negative reflection of
your site from the first visit.
- Be focused with your domains. You are trying to attract people to
your site with a particular purpose and your domain names should
clearly reflect this. People will be visiting your site in the hope
that it will offer something different over others in a similar vein
and your domain names should encapsulate the essence of what your site
is all about.
- It's commonly perceived that you should stay away from using words
that are spelt differently globally. For example rationalize.com (USA)
and rationalise.com (UK) or color.com (USA) and colour.com (UK).
However by combining domain names of various spellings you may actually
improve your chances of catching visitors who may try different domain
spellings in their browser as well as improve your chances of higher
ranking in regional search engines.
- The right domain names will help improve the profile of your brand
and ensure you strengthen it on the Web. The wrong domain names can
cause the reverse to happen. As you will probably be using your domain
names for email as well as other marketing you will need to ensure that
they are both memorable and enduring. Like any brand name, logo, or
trademark, your domain name represents your business identity the World
over!
- Don't get caught out by using domain names that infringe
copyrights, trade-marks, or names of existing trading companies. It is
very tempting to use words or names of companies similar to your
business but this could land you in hot water legally and give your
identity a negative focus of attention if it is perceived that you are
simply piggy-backing off someone else's success.
- Registering a long domain name containing a list of relevant words
for your web site may achieve a higher ranking in some search engines.
Several of the major search engines rank web sites much higher if the
search terms are contained in the domain name. This is a useful trick
which is becoming increasingly popular as a way of optimising indexing
within a broad range of search engines.
