How to choose the right domain name for your business – The Complete Guide
Choosing the right domain name for your business is a crucial decision, that’s because your domain name is way more than the words you type into the browser, it’s your business online identity.
Choosing the wrong domain name will make it harder to achieve success for your business. But choosing the right domain name will make it much easier to achieve your online business success.
But, how exactly do you choose the right domain name for your business?
Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Below you’ll find the most comprehensive guide with the top tips and tricks to help you pick the right domain name for your business.
What’s the difference between the Domain and the URL?
First of all, before we go further, let’s figure out what a domain is. Look at your browser and you will see something like this ‘https://yoursite.com’. The whole line is the URL or (Uniform Resource Locater).
The domain simply is the second part of the URL; for us, it’s ‘hostilica.com’. Which is divided into two parts, the first part is the second-level domain (SLD) which is ‘hostilica’ in our example, the second part is the top-level domain (TLD) which is ‘.com’.
You can also find more about the .COM domain in our article What is .COM domain name?.
We recommend searching your “.com” domain and register it even if you are not planning to own a website soon. but your “.com” domain will be yours forever.
Okay, let’s get into the business.
1. How to Choose a Domain Name, and Why it Matters?
Well, because your domain name is a big part of your business. It’s a part of your brand. If you managed to choose a memorable name that reflects your business identity, it will be much easier for your visitors to remember your domain and find you.
On the other hand, if you chose a long name that’s hard to spell and/or hard to read, that’s maybe a reason that your potential visitors can’t make it to your website. We recommend that it should be between 6 to 14 characters.
So, just choosing the right domain name will make your online life much easier. We’ll learn to be creative and clever in choosing the right domain that instantly reflects to your visitors what your website is all about.
2. Choosing a TLD That Suits Your Needs
As we mentioned earlier, TLD stands for top level domain. The most common TLDs are .com, .net, and .org. But there are over a thousand TLDs to choose from, so how do you choose the right TLD for you? Here are some tips to keep in mind that would help you out.
The .COM TLD:
The .com TLD or top level domain is the most commonly used and recognized TLD in the world. So, most people have a built-in relationship with .com being the primary TLD.
By the way, that’s because the .com TLD is one from the oldest and original line-up of six TLDs, which are (.com => commercial, .net => network, .org => organization, .edu => education, .gov => government, .mil => military).
So, you can take advantage of the .com TLD popularity and use this to build a higher-quality brand.
You can Try a New TLDs:
Here at HOSTILICA, you can get plenty of new domain extensions if you decided to go unique. You can look for a generic top-level domain (gTLD) like a .INC, WEBSITE, STORE, or .APP or you can look for a country code top-level domain (ccTLD) like .US, .DE, .CA, and so on.
What About GeoTLD or GTLD?
The easiest way to tell your users – and search engines- that your website is aimed at them is to choose either a country code top-level domain (ccTLD), as we mentioned before or a geographic top-level domain (GeoTLD).
While the (ccTLD) represents a country such as the US, (GeoTLD) represents specific geographical locations of continents, as an example, .ASIA, .AFRICA, .NYC, and so on.
3. Choosing a Domain Name for Your Business or Personal Website
Let’s discover the best ways to get domain selection ideas and suggestions to help you decide!
The easiest way for choosing a good website name is to grab a pen and paper and start writing down any words related to your business, product, or the service you provide. Keep in mind that it’s possible that the domain you want to be already taken, so you might need to be creative and think outside the box.
The other way is to use Google Keyword Planner, to help you choose the right domain name if you’re stuck for ideas. Note that keywords are not only for content because search engines use your domain name to understand what your site is about and help determine search rankings. This tool lets you explore the keywords by search volume and many other factors to let you identify the terms people use to search for something on Google.
Here are some very important tips to consider when choosing a domain name:
Keep it short
Without any doubt keeping your domain as short as possible will help you make your brand more memorable. The fewer characters your domain has, the easier it’ll be to say, type, and share with others.
It might be hard nowadays to find a single word domain name that’s related to your business; however, you can combine two or three short words together to make a memorable domain name.
Plus, consider that more interns users nowadays use their mobiles to browse the web, so you need to make it easy for them to type your domain name into their mobile browser.
Choose a Domain Name that’s Easy to Pronounce and Spell
You surely want your domain name to be memorable. So, note that Word-of-mouth is still one of the most powerful advertising techniques.
When you choose a domain name that’s easy to pronounce and spell, that makes it easy for people to share your domain name with themselves, remember it more easily, and increase the odds that more people will visit and share your website among their networks.
Avoid Hyphens and Doubled Letters
Using hyphens may seem to be a creative or funky way to get the domain name that you want. But unfortunately, hyphens are tough to express verbally. Also, it makes typing the domain name more difficult, and many people will probably forget about them and end up on someone else’s website.
Doubled letters inside the domain name are like typos because doubled letters are hard to read and harder to type correctly.
Generally, avoid using hyphens and doubled letters in your domain name because you may end up losing many users or end up with someone taking advantage and stealing your traffic, so let’s avoid all of this from the beginning.
Make it Unique and Brandable
Brandable means that when anyone hears or sees your domain name, it sounds like a brand. Your visitors should be able to predict what your website will be about just by looking at your domain name.
Remember this advice, your website should deliver its message on the label, and your domain name is the label.
Make Sure it’s Clear of Copyright Issues
If you are fairly settled on a specific domain name, you have to look into your domain’s past and make sure that your domain is clear of any copyright issues.
– Check if your domain name contains any words that have a double meaning
– Check if there any trademark issues with the words used in your domain
– Check social media and make sure that your social media handles are available.
This step will help you make sure that you are not creating brand confusion or accidentally stepping on any other trademark; in addition to that, it will help you build brand consistency and make it much easier for your visitors to find you on all of the online channels.
Protect Your Brand with Multiple Domains
Finally, if you settled on a domain name, then buy it in every popular TLD.
Even if you managed to buy a .com TLD, you might also consider buying other popular TLDs and setting up redirects.
This strategy helps keep your traffic safe and prevent anyone from stealing it. You should also apply this for your social media channels, for example, even if you think you wouldn’t use Twitter, you should grab your Twitter handle, this way you’ll be ready to tweet if you ever decide to do that. Also, you’ll prevent anyone from taking your handle.
4. You Can Get Your Free Domain with Your Web Hosting
HOSTILICA offers you a free domain name registration when you sign up for a hosting plan, now you can enjoy a one year free hosting service only from Hotilica. You won’t have to worry about migrating your domain because you registered it through your hosting provider.
Ready to Register?
It takes OneClick to check if your desired domain name is available, once you’ve found the perfect domain name for your business and made sure it’s available, it will take just a few moments to register it.
