Business name, domain name, and brand logo are all essential to building a brand for your eCommerce websites. Your domain name is your website’s home address on the Internet. It’s important to choose a domain name that not only works for your business but is also easy to find and promote.
Your domain name is the first thing your visitors will see and a good domain name will make a positive and lasting impression. What’s more, keywords in your domain name can help your SEO ranking. And the right domain name can increase brand recognition. Make sure to put some careful thought into choosing your domain name. The article will introduce steps to choosing a domain name and give some tips for you to choose a good domain name.
Steps To Choose A Domain Name
1. Choose keywords that represent your site
You can generate ideas for a domain name based on your site’s name or your existing business. Most importantly, you should choose one or more keywords that represent your site and content. A strong keyword is a key ingredient of a truly effective domain name. Using keywords in your domain name can bring in more traffic by helping your site rank more highly in search engine results. Furthermore, keywords can help potential visitors better understand your site’s focus and business. It’s a good idea to use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Keywordtool.io, and KWFinder to search for terms that have both a high search volume and low competition ideally.
2. Use a domain name generator to browse your options
As long as you have a few keywords, you can use a domain name generator to brainstorm ideas for your domain name and make sure that all its suggestions are available for purchase. These generators turn your ideas into fresh, available domains.
Here are some domain name generators that you can try out:
- Wordoid
This tool allows you to plug in a word. It will come up with ideas that either contain that word, begin with that word or end with that word. - Lean Domain Search
This tool matches your keyword with other keywords and generates a list of available domains. - Domain Wheel
It allows you to enter a keyword into the search box and it will return lots of variations to choose from. - Nameboy
It is one of the oldest and most popular domain name generator tools online. You can search for new company name ideas and get the domain name instantly. - IsItWP
IsItWP offers a fast and instant domain research tool. Start by entering a few keywords or your brand name and it will display a ton of domain ideas using a variety of combinations.
3. Select the best domain name based on some simple criteria
You should select the best domain name based on some simple criteria which will be introduced in specific in the following tips for choosing a domain name. There are six tips for you to refer to, including using the right domain name extension, making it short and easy to pronounce and spell, being brandable over generic, avoiding numbers and hyphens, avoiding double letters, and checking availability on social media sites and trademarks.
4. Register your domain name
Then all you need to do is buy the domain name based on the hosting provider you decide to use. You can usually purchase a domain name during the process of signing up for a hosting plan. What’s more, you can buy a domain separately through a dedicated registrar or hosting company. And you don’t have to get your hosting and domain name from the same place. There are hundreds of domain name registrars online, such as Domain.com and GoDaddy.
Domain.com is one of the best domain registrars on the market. They offer all top-level domain names, with a smart search feature, premium domains, and all the necessary tools to manage your domain names.
GoDaddy is the largest domain registrar in the world. They manage over 63 million domain names for over 14 million customers.
In addition, these are the recommended domain name registrars sites that you can use:
Tips For Choosing A Domain Name
1. Use the right domain name extension
There are plenty of domain name extensions available today, from the original .com, .net and .org to niche extensions like .pizza, .photography, and even .blog. Among them .com is still the most established and credible domain name extension. Go with .com is still the best choice for it is the most familiar and easiest to remember. Users are conditioned to type .com at the end of every website. If your website was sally. photography and your users typed in sallyphotography.com, then they might end up on an error page or worst your competitor’s website.
2. Make it short and easy to pronounce and spell
One of the biggest reasons for the lost traffic is typos. In the case of typos, when choosing a domain name, it’s extremely important that your domain name is short, under 15 characters ideally, and easy to spell and pronounce. Then if you’re ever in a public place without a business card, you can easily share your website and others will be able to remember and find it. It also makes it easier for visitors to share your domain name by word-of-mouth. Tell 10 people your potential domain name and ask them to pronounce it and spell it to see if they have struggled.
3. Brandable over generic
It is important for your domain name to be brandable so that it can stand out in people’s minds. Your domain name is the foundation of your brand. A brandable domain name is unique and stands out from the competition, while a generic domain name is usually stuffed with keywords and unmemorable. You can make up your own catchy, new words like what Google, Bing, and Yahoo did. It is also a good idea to use a thesaurus to find interesting words that fit your brand.
4. Avoid numbers and hyphens
Numbers and hyphens are often misunderstood for people who hear your website address don’t know if you’re using a numeral or it’s spelled out or they misplace or forget to add the hyphen. Hyphens and numbers also make it more difficult to pronounce and spell and thus are prone to more typos. They also prevent your domain from spreading quickly. So stick to the letters.
5. Avoid double letters
Avoid domain names with doubled letters for the reason that it increases your chances of losing traffic to typos. And most domain name generators are not smart enough to avoid doubled letters, so it’s for you to keep in mind when choosing the domain name.
6. Check availability on social media sites and trademarks
It is necessary to check to see if the name is available on social media sites and if there are any trademarks already registered to the name. You can use a tool like Knowem to check social networks and trademarks for your potential domain name quickly. It’ll show you if it’s available throughout over 25 popular social networks, as well as trademarks.
