Choosing a domain name for your business
There are more than 98 million domain names currently registered and that makes it tough to come up with a name you will like that no one has registered yet. Here are some things to consider:
There are a lot of Top Level Domains (TLDs) you can choose from including com, net, org, info, biz and us but if this is for a business website, go with .com. It’s the standard and if you want to have even a hope that people will remember your web address, it needs to be a .com.
Make a list of at least a dozen possible choices before you start checking on availability. Include your company name but don’t be surprised if someone else already has it, unless it’s a unique name. Let’s say your business name is Smith Brothers Plumbing. And you’re located in Fort Worth, Texas. Let’s come up with some possibilities.
- smithbrothersplumbing.com (being optimistic)
- smithbrothers.com (leaving out the keyword)
- sbplumbing.com (focus on the keyword)
- sbplumbers.com (might be a more popular keyword than plumbing)
- sbplumbingfortworth.com (adding the local anchor)
- sbplumbersfortworth.com (switching the keyword)
- fortworthplumber.com (going for the popular search phrase)
- fortworthplumbers.com (plural)
- plumberfortworth.com (keyword first)
- plumbersfortworth.com (plural again)
- ftworthplumber.com (common abbreviation of city name)
- ftworthplumbers.com (try the plural again)
- tarrantcountyplumber.com (going for the broader geographical anchor)
You’ll notice that there are no hyphens or underscores in the names. Again, if you want the address to be memorable, leave out punctuation. No one will remember it and it’s harder to type. Here are some additional tips for what to avoid when choosing a domain name.
Now, how do you find out if any of these domain names are available? Don’t check with Network Solutions until they fix this questionable practice. You can try godaddy.com or dotster.com and find instant feedback on whether or not your domain names are available and you can either register them right on the spot or come back later and do it.
Which domain name do you go with? Chances are that more than one of your choices will be available. Let’s see how our selections fared.
As of this writing, these four are available:
smithbrothersplumbing.com
sbplumbingfortworth.com
sbplumbersfortworth.com
tarrantcountyplumber.com
Which one to go with? The obvious choice is the company name, smithbrothersplumbing.com. If that one weren’t available, I’d go with sbplumbingfortworth.com since it’s close to the company name and includes the city name as well. But any one of these four choices would work.
From an SEO perspective, it’s not clear how much of an advantage it is to have a keyword like plumbing or plumbers in your domain name. But it definitely can’t hurt you and has the advantage of telling people what your company is about before they even see the website. So if your company name was Smith Brothers Residential Services, but most of what you do is plumbing repair, add plumbing or plumbers to your domain name.
Once you decide, register it for 10 years. Unless you think your company will be out of business sooner than that, it is actually an indicator that the search engines take into account when ranking a website. If you have a brand-new website and the domain name is registered for one year, it could send the wrong message.
Once you register the domain name, get it hosted right away even if it will be months till your website is ready to launch. Put up a “business card” home page in the meantime. Include your company logo, name, and all contact info plus a paragraph of text describing your business. You can include a mention of the fact that the website is under development, but don’t put up a generic “under construction” page or a cute graphic.
Already have a domain name you’re not thrilled with? Think you should change domain names? Read this first!
