Selecting Domain Names
Domain Name Tips for Businesses
by Sharlee Plett
Learn tips for selecting a good business domain name, plus tips on domain names for businesses in this article from our domain name series.
Selecting a Domain Name for Your Existing Business
For established businesses, the usual first choice would be to use your business name as your domain name. Classic examples are The Washington Post, which uses the domain name http://www.washingtonpost.com/ or Bank of America with http://www.bankofamerica.com/.
The problem is that your name may be in use in another county or state or even in another country, and they may have already registered the domain name, so you may have to come up with alternatives.
Here are some alternative domain name ideas:
If your business focuses on a particular line of products, you could add the product to your business name. As an example, an Italian restaurant named Mario’s might register the domain name http://www.mariositalian.com/.
Acronyms are also a candidate for domain names. As an example, Powers Repair Services could become prservices.com, prs.com or other catchy variations.
On the web, prefixes or suffixesare often used to create useful and memorable domain names:
Examples of prefixes:
123marios.com
eatmarios.com
cybermarios.com
Examples of suffixes:
mariosonline.com
mariosontheweb.com
mariosnet.com
Some businesses solve the online domain name problem by using their business slogan. A good example of a very successful business that has done this is Diamonds International. By the time they got around to building their online division, their name had already been registered, so they named their website on their slogan, which is “Welcome to Our World”. You can see how they use the company name and the slogan at their site at http://www.welcometoourworld.com/. Its quite effective as the domain name is easy for their customers to remember.
Another time honored solution is to create a catchy domain name that works well with your company’s marketing strategy. As an example, lets say your specialty is hand-made gold jewelry imports. Perhaps goldenhandjewelry.com would be a candidate. On your site, you would say something like GoldenHandJewlery.com, an online division of Your Company Name.
Selecting Good Domain Names:
One of the first choices you will have to make is whether or not to register your primary domain name as a .com. Since your customers are most familiar with .com and are more likely to remember it and type it in when they are looking for you, it is probably wise to register your primary domain name as a .com even if it means you will have to use an alternative naming scheme for your web site. The exception to this is non-profit organizations, which should use .org, networking companies such as Internet service providers, which should use .net and accredited educational institutions which should use .edu.
Businesses in other countries may find that it is preferable to use a country specific domain name which is familiar and memorable to the customers in their country. As an example, .co.uk is the country specific version of .com in the United Kingdom.
The problem with using .biz, .info and other alternatives to .com or the country specific version of dot com is that the name you choose is probably already registered. This may not be good for your business, as your customers are very likely to type in your domain name with the .com extension and will end up at another company’s site. This will be particularly bad if they are a competitor!
If you find that your company name is registered as a .com, you might consider trying to buy it from the current owner. You can also check and see when the name expires and try to acquire it if the current owner fails to renew it. If you own the trademark for the name, you should check with your legal counsel to see if you can enforce your trademark and acquire your name.
Try to keep the length of your domain name short, memorable and easy to spell. A length of between 5 and 15 characters is preferable, although if a name is descriptive and memorable, longer will work just fine. As an example, montrosejewelryonline.com is 21 characters long but it is easy to remember and easy to spell so it will probably work very well.
When choosing a domain name, keep in mind that you will want to put your domain name on your business stationary, business cards, perhaps use it on radio and T.V. ads and on your existing marketing materials. Will it fit? Does it look good in print? Can you verbalize it easily? Can you design an effective logo for the web site and for your company print materials with it? The other use of a domain name will be for your company email address. Does it work well as an email address?
The question often comes up as to whether to use dashes (marios-restaurant.com) or underscores (marios_restaurant.com) in an domain name. Of the two, the dash is the easiest to verbalize. The dash is preferable. Compare “Our domain name is marios dash restaurant dot com to “Our domain name is marios underscore restaurant dot com”. Which one works best if you have to tell the person the name over the phone or on a radio ad?
Numbers in a domain name can be quite problematic when verbalized. Lets take shop4jewelry.com as an example. In print its quite effective. Verbalized, it is a nightmare. You have to say something like “our domain name is shop 4 jewelry dot com” and the user will immediately think it could be shopforjewelry.com. To clarify you will have to say shop 4 jewelry dot com - that’s the number 4 not the word for. A solution to this is to register both shop4jewelry.com and shopforjewelry.com and have both names go to your website.
Strictly Online Businesses:
If you do not have an established business and you plan to market and sell primarily on the Internet, here are some points to consider:
Consider using generic type domain names that are short, catchy, and very easy to remember or brand. Generic examples are pricewatch.com, etrade.com, buy.com. Brand examples are google.com, amazon.com, overture.com to name a few.
With generic type names, try to choose words that are easy to spell that are related to your business. As an example, a wedding favors retailer might choose weddingfavorsplus.com. In this case you are looking for words or terms that your potential customers might think of to find your products or services.
For brand based names, you can use pretty much anything - the only question is, does it make sense for your business and can you brand it? As an example, amazon.com does not have anything to do with books, but it does imply huge, its easy to spell and remember and it has an added advantagle of starting with the letter “a” which will cause it to come to to top of any alphabetized lists of sites. Its a really great name and they have effectively branded it on the Internet and on many other promotional and marketing channels as well.
About the Author: Sharlee Plett is the webmaster of smartwebcenter.com. A small business and web developer, her expertise includes web design, database programming and small business administration. Article Copyright © Sharlee Plett, provided courtesy of smartwebcenter.com. Visit http://www.smartwebcenter.com/ for more articles, ebooks and ebook excerpts.
You may reprint this article without alteration along as you include this info box and the links are active.
Keywords:domain names domains marketing
