Choosing the Right Domain
A guide to Web Domains
- Your domain should be easy to type. If you use slang (i.e. U instead of You) then you will find that it may be harder for customers to find you.
- Keep your domain short – If your domain name is long or complex then you risk customers mistyping or misspelling your website address.
- Use keywords that describe your products or services. For example, if you are a watch repair business, you may want to register a domain like watchrepair.com or watchesrepaired.com. Including keywords that people enter when using search will certainly help your cause. It helps you to rank higher on search engines and makes more sense in the eyes of customers.
- Target your geographical area. If you have a local business then consider using the town or city name in the website domain. This will make it easier for customers to find you and remember the website address. A good example of a geographical domain for a watch repair person could be: NewcastleWatchRepair.com.
- There are literally millions of registered domains, so making you domain memorable is essential in making your new website appealing and memorable to customers. Share your ideas with family and friends and find out what domain names they like and make the most sense for your website.
- Make sure the domain you choose isn’t trademarked, copyrighted or similarly being used by another website.
- Use the most appropriate domain name extension. Extensions like .com and .net
- .com : an abbreviation for company, commerce, and community
- .info : informative websites
- .net : technical, Internet infrastructure sites
- .org : nonprofits & non-commercial organisations
- .biz : businesses or commercial use, like e-commerce sites
- .me : blogs, CVs or personal sites
Top Tip: You can have several domain names and you don’t need to build a website for every domain. It is possible to forward any additional domains to your primary website or create different landing pages for each domain.
