Choosing a Domain name for your website can be challenging. You need to get it right and if you don’t, you could be stuck with it!

Here are a few tips from us that may help you.

Business Name or Product?

An important factor to consider when choosing a domain name is whether or not it is based on your business name or you products or services. To improve your ranking on Search Engines, it is a good idea to first consider keywords that you will be optimising your website for. Then use these keywords in the domain name. For example, if you sell designer handbags and your business name is ‘Green Brothers’, it would be better to name your website something like designerhandbags.  Of course, you can still list your company name on your website, but your domain name will include all the important keywords you'll want to be found with. Click here for more information on Search Engine Optimisation SEO.

If you don’t feel it is important to be found by the search engines and are just creating a website for a local business, then it would be a better idea to use your business name.  This way you will be creating more brand awareness. 

Check first that there is not anything about your business name that makes using it an unwise choice. This could be the case if you have a long business name or have plural words. For example ‘Green Brothers Designer Handbags Inc". Prospective customers are going to find it difficult to remember such a domain name.

If you still can’t decide, you could consider registering two domain names - one for your business name and one containing product or service keywords.

Avoid Hyphens

Hyphens in a domain name can lead to problems. They are difficult to remember and often, customers end up visiting the wrong site. If you find that the name you want is already taken, think carefully before you choose the same name with hyphens. For example, if flowersforyou.com.au is gone and you decide to register flowers-for-you.com.au instead, often customers will actually only remember the first name and end up on their website instead of yours.

Keep It Short

If your domain name is too long, it will be difficult for people to remember it. If people  hear about your website or read about it somewhere, you want them to remember it until they get access to a computer.  Also a short domain name means there is less chance of someone misspelling it.

Website Extension

There are two things to consider here  - business location and organisation type. The extension you use tells people what country you are operating from eg .au for Australia and .uk for Britain. If you are trying to target customers from other countries and want to give the impression that you are a global organisation, it might be a good idea to use a domain with a .com extension. 
A domain extension can also describe what type of business you are operating. For example, a .org usually means that you are a non-profit organisation.  and .biz is often used for "resource" type web sites. The most popular for Australian businesses is  .com.

Avoid trademarks

There have been cases of companies suing website owners for copyright and trademark infringement, so be very careful if you use anything in your domain name that could come into this area. For example, you sell watches including the Swatch brand and your company name is TickTock - do not be tempted to use a domain name such as SwatchOnline.com in order to get more customers.