What is a Domain Name?

Before you build your own website, you must first choose and buy a domain name for your personal or business. So, what is a domain name all about? Just imagine this, exactly in the brick-and-mortar world; you need to register your business name with government agencies or Company Registrar before you can run your business. So, domain name (for example RankingPedia.com) resembles to your business name in brick-and-mortar world. It is also your website identify or URL. (p/s: A domain name can go up to 67 characters, and it can contain numbers, hyphens, and characters)

Choosing a correct or suitable domain name is important as it is the image or the name your visitors or customers will remember every time they talk about you. It relates very much to your business nature and positioning strategy you wish to run for your business. It has a long-term impact that affects even to the bottom lines of your business or interests.

How to Choose A Domain Name?

Choosing a suitable domain name is just not about pick and buy. It might be easier to buy a domain name that spells your name, as it is unique. For example, you can easily register domain name www.AbrahamJack.com for personal use. Somehow, it will be a different story getting a domain that people remember for your business.

The following are the Six Tips to Choose A Domain Name:

1. Choose a Domain Name you will use as your Website Name

It is a common nature that people remember your website by name, for example RankingPediaTM. Instead of browsing through search engine for this website, repeated visitors can just go direct to this website typing www.RankingPedia.com on their web browser.

Let’s imaging if you own a website name after the brand “GoodBuy” while the domain name “GoodBuy.com” belongs to competitors, the very high chance is, your customers may end up at your competitors’ website. So to say, always buy a domain name that resembles to website name.

Very frequent the situation is, you tend to realize the suitable domain names are mostly taken up; you may opt to compromise for a different domain name that is still available, and then naming your website after the registered domain name. Alternatively, you can find out who the owner of your preferred domain name is through WHOIS, then make an offer to buy a domain name from the domain owner. You can do this provided you have huge budget, because very likely you will need to pay for much higher fee for that.

2. Choose a Domain Name that is Easy to Remember

For the same reason, buy a domain name that is similar to website name, it is very important to choose a domain name that represents your business and easy to remember. Let’s take examples of Facebook, Yahoo, or even Google for this matter, you will find their domain names pretty unique, short, and easy to remember; compared with domain names such as “letstypeand findwhatyouwant.com” or “bacp.com”. I bet you will hardly recall the website name “BACP” after leaving it for weeks or even minutes!

3. How to choose between a Short and Long Domain Name?

It is a general preference buying a short domain name as compared to long domains for a few reasons - it is easier to remember, easier to type, and less likely for typo errors. This is generally true in most cases, but not all the time. Taking this example, “bacp.com” sounds weird as it composes of a few non-related characters, as compared with “BeautyAndCosmeticProduct.com”. Definitely the later makes more sense and easier to remember.

A longer domain name that contains popular search keywords such as “BuyBusinessReport.com” will have added advantages to “BBRP.com” in terms of search engine ranking. Potential buyers search after the keyword “Buy business report” will have higher chance of finding your website at BuyBusinessReport.com, rather than bbrp.com.

Therefore, the answer to choosing between a short or long domain names can be very subjective. Always, the rules of thumb are – buy a domain name that is easy to remember, and relevant to your business.

4. How to choose between a Generic or Brand Name Domain?

Just answer this simple question. If you are exclusive car seller for BMW, do you want people to remember you as “carseller.com”, or your brand “BMW.com”? Lots of people have a perception that, if you sell cars, you should have the generic word “car” in the domain name, and the same goes to other products or businesses such as “house”, “shopping”,  “movie”, and so on. Again, you can notice successful online businesses that name their domain after their unique brand names, such as Google, Yahoo, Amazon, and so on.

Looking beyond that, it can also be a good idea combining both the brand & keyword in your domain name, for example “SuzanneArt.com”, and the sub-domain “shopping.yahoo.com”. By doing so, people will recognize your brand; they know the website is relevant to their search for art-related information; and at the same time your website will garner greater ranking advantage from search engines when people search for art-related information.

In short, people will tend to remember your unique brand name, rather than just some other generic and obscure domain name that most people use. Combining both, it can be a powerful domain name!

5. What if, I couldn't get the domain name I want? Shall I choose a domain name with “my”, “the”, “hypen”, “2u”, “4u”, and so on?

Yes, this is one of the common questions I encountered. If you ever search for domain name that is no longer available using the most popular domain registration site such as GoDaddy.com, Network solutions, and Dotster, frequent they will suggest alternate domain names with “the”, “my”, and so on for you to consider. The question is, shall you pick it up? Well, you could, but make sure you promote your website name with “the” and “my” in it. If it is MyBusinessCase.com, then you should promote your site as MyBusinessCase, rather than just BusinessCase.

Similarly if you choose a domain name with “2u” or “4u”, you will need to promote your website name in full. However let’s think about this, if your customer tells other about your website as “BusinessCase2u”, likely others will hear it as “BusinessCaseToYou.com” in their mind. This is something to take note of.

If you choose a hyphenated domain name, such as “My-Business-Case.com”, there are pros and cons for you doing so. The advantages are, you can buy a domain name that is no longer available in general format; and it enables search engines to distinguish your domain keywords better and thus providing you with added advantage in organic search results. However, the disadvantages are, people tend to type your domain name without hyphen; people will remember your site as MyBusinessCase.com rather than My-Business-Case.com; and the last thing is, it is a painful process for your customers typing all the hyphens while searching for you!

6. How to choose between a country-specific (.Us, .Sg, .Ca, .Co.Uk, etc) domain and other Top-Level Domain Extensions (.Com, .Org, .Info, .Biz,)?

Top level domain .com is preferred compared with other domain extension (.sg, .de, .org, .net, etc). For simple reason, it suggests a U.S. or International business; and secondly, if you name your business after “baby gift”, people will associate your website to “BabyGift.com”, rather than other extensions such as .sg, .co.uk, .net, and so on.

This is generally true, but again it is not all the time. Especially if you are running a food catering service in UK, most likely people will click visit your site at “FoodCatering.co.uk” rather than “FoodCatering.com”, which suggest U.S. or international website. Similarly you should opt for the “Donation.org” than “Donation.com” if you are running a charity or non-profit organization. So, choosing a suitable domain extension depends very much on the nature of your business, and the geographical territories you serve.

I have summarized the meanings and general purposes of various domain extensions, further divided into 3 different categories, as shown in this tabulation:

Finally, please bear in mind that the domain name goes with your business even if you shift your website to another web hosting provider; and customers will always try to find you through your domain name or URL. You may risk losing your loyal customers if you change domain after year of business. So, let’s choose wisely!

List of Popular Domain Registrars >> Click HERE

How to Register Your Domain Name >> Click HERE