Methods to Select the Perfect Domain Name

Selecting a website name is one in every of the largest decisions you’ll make as an internet site owner.

The improper domain name could make your site hard to search out, negatively impact your brand’s fame, and even give squatters opportunities to impersonate your website for nefarious activities.

So what’s the key to avoiding all of that and selecting the right domain name? Fortunately, picking a winning domain isn’t overly complicated. So long as you do your research, stay on-brand, and keep it user-friendly, you’re prone to make a great selection.

Read on to learn more in regards to the importance of selecting the appropriate domain, and take a look at a few of our top suggestions for selecting a website name that uniquely and properly represents your website. Able to learn more? Let’s start!

Why Selecting The Perfect Domain Name Is Crucial

Imagine in the event you needed to navigate the online by typing long strings of numbers into the address bar in your web browser. You’d should memorize lengthy sets of numbers for all of your favorite web sites. Or look them up. Getting across the ‘net could be much harder!

That’s why domains were created. They’re a component of the larger Domain Name System (DNS), which allows web users to input mixtures of words into the address bar to navigate the web as an alternative of lengthy and exhausting strings of numbers. Your domain name acts as your web address: the unique word or phrase visitors will type in an address bar to go to your site.

On this sense, domains serve a highly practical function, but they’re greater than that. Your domain name can be often the primary impression a possible customer could have of your brand, whether you’re a contract photographer, a small business, or a world corporation. That’s why it’s so essential to decide on the appropriate domain. It’s as essential a component of your organization’s branding as your name or logo.

It’s also essential to follow some best practices when selecting a website name. You don’t want it to be too long. Many individuals see that as spammy and a red flag. You furthermore mght want it to be something catchy and memorable so people can easily recollect it after they need to revisit your site.

Also note that changing your domain name might be difficult. It’s not unattainable, but it will probably result in some less-than-desirable outcomes like lost traffic and site downtime. That’s why it’s best to nail your domain name from the get-go so that you don’t have to worry about changing it later.

How To Select The Perfect Domain Name (12 Pro Suggestions)

Now that you understand why picking the appropriate domain name is so essential, let’s go over some key tricks to allow you to do exactly that. The 12 pro suggestions below will allow you to select the most effective domain name on your website or business. Once we’ve covered those, we’ll go over how you can select a website name registrar and get your site built. Read on!

1. Stay Unique And On Brand

A novel domain name doesn’t just help your website stand out — it boosts your marketing and helps construct your brand. Nonetheless, you possibly can’t just start with an amazing domain name. First, you would like an amazing business name.

That’s where our free Business Name Generator is available in. You provide your industry and a couple of keywords, and the generator uses AI to supply a listing of unique and memorable potential business names that can allow you to stand out from the competition.

When you’ve chosen an ideal business name, the remainder of the following tips will allow you to be certain you decide an equally perfect domain name for it.

2. Select Your Top-Level Domain Extension Fastidiously

A Top-Level Domain (TLD) extension is the last a part of your URL: the suffix that comes right after your website name. Among the most popular TLDs are .com, .org, and .net.

Amongst all of the TLDs, .com might be the most well-liked selection. Nonetheless, if the .com domain name you wish is already taken, it’s not the top of the world.

Other TLDs reminiscent of .xyz, .shop, .club, .online, .art, .inc, and even .party are becoming increasingly common. You possibly can go along with something relevant to your industry – like .biz or .shop in the event you’re in e-commerce, and even .marketing or .technology if you should be specific about what you offer. Country codes, or ccTLDs, are also popular. In recent times, increasingly more startups are using ccTLDs like .co.uk (England), .io (Indian Ocean), .ai (Anguilla), and .co (Colombia), for instance.

In case you’re using our Business Name Generator to go looking for business names, you possibly can click on any available name options to see a listing of obtainable domains and TLDs.

Ultimately, you’ll need to select a website name extension that’s cohesive along with your website and signals credibility, so keep that in mind.

3. Incorporate Targeted Keywords

Want customers to have the ability to search out your site via a Google search? Keywords aren’t only for content. Search engines like google use your domain name to know what your site is about and help determine its position in search rankings. That’s why it’s essential to try to incorporate relevant keywords in your domain in the event you can.

The keywords you select on your domain needs to be relevant to your website and targeted to your audience. In case you’re having trouble considering of fine ideas, Search Engine Optimization (Search engine optimization) tools may help. Semrush, Moz, and Ahrefs are powerful and popular options, and Google Keyword Planner is a free tool that allows you to do some basic keyword research like explore keywords by search volume.

As well as to selecting keywords which can be relevant to your website, you possibly can explore what essentially the most trendy keywords are at any moment and take a look at to search out an identical keyword along with your domain and your brand. Among the best resources for that is dotDB’s top keywords, that are updated every day. Other options include using the 20 hottest keywords of all domains which have ever been registered; this gives you a general picture of which keyword is most ideal for an internet site.

Do not forget that a website name doesn’t offer you loads of space to work with (and the shorter your domain name is, the more Search engine optimization-friendly it’s going to be), so only use keywords after they slot in naturally.

4. Make Sure Your Domain Is Easy To Pronounce And Spell

While you wish your domain name to be original so it stands out, novelty isn’t all the time a great thing. Modifying the spelling of a standard word to snag the .com extension (or simply to be more unique) can confuse your audience and make your site harder to search out.

Word-of-mouth promoting is a strong thing, however it only works when people can pronounce your brand name. An excellent domain name must be easily pronounceable because that makes it easier to recollect, increasing the percentages that individuals will visit and recommend your site amongst their personal, social, and business networks.

So, what’s a straightforward method to be certain your domain is memorable and simple to pronounce? Use the four-letter pattern c-v-c-v (consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel) like Meta or c-c-v-c (consonant-consonant-vowel-consonant) like Snap. These patterns are easy to say and simple to recollect.

5. Avoid Hyphens, Abbreviations, And Doubled Letters

Using hyphens in a website isn’t all the time a no-go (it really works for www.deutsche-bank.com, for instance), but hyphens are tough to specific verbally (do you say “dash” or “hyphen” out loud?). Moreover, they make your domain harder to type, which is why it’s still a best practice to avoid them.

The identical goes for abbreviations, that are also difficult to say out loud and might easily be mistyped or misspelled. Also, attempt to avoid anything that isn’t a letter. This includes replacing letters with numbers, which makes the domain loads easier for people to mistype.

While there are exceptions once you’re brainstorming domain name ideas, it’s best to avoid double letters — they’re just asking for typos! Doubled letters are hard to read and even harder to type appropriately. If mistakes occur often enough, you could find yourself with someone typosquatting and stealing your traffic.

6. Keep Your Domain Name Short

We’ve already alluded to this, but short domains work higher for a lot of reasons: they’re easier to recollect, faster to type, and higher for Search engine optimization.

This is very essential as increasingly more individuals are browsing the web on mobile devices. A brief domain name means fewer opportunities for mobile users to get blindsided by maddening autocorrect.

This might mean you should get creative along with your company name. While it’s ideal to make use of a brandable domain (a website name that’s the identical as your organization name, like Amazon.com for Amazon), you would possibly have to shorten your domain to make it as user-friendly as possible. For instance, if your organization name is Eli’s Tea Bar and Cake Shop, your domain may very well be shortened to elistea.com and even elis.tea.

7. Pick A Domain Name That’s Flexible

Your domain name is one area where you don’t need to put yourself right into a box. While you need to be specific enough to draw an audience, you don’t need to be so precise that there’s no room on your website to grow.

For instance, “shutter.photography” is perhaps perfect for a photography blog. Nonetheless, in the event you resolve to put in writing about other art forms in the long run, you’ll be stuck with an inaccurate domain name.

That’s why it’s a great idea to take into consideration how your site or business may expand over time when selecting your domain. Make this decision with long-term vision, and also you’ll be less prone to limit yourself (and your online business) in the long run.

8. Check The Domain History

When you’ve landed on an excellent domain name, it’s essential to do a little bit of homework before you buy it. While some domains are completely fresh, it’s possible that a website you’ve your eye on had a previous owner.

It’s a great idea to analyze the domain’s history since activity on the positioning before you bought it will probably affect your site’s Search engine optimization. You furthermore mght need to avoid purchasing a website that hosted an unethical or illegal website previously since that may hurt your online business’s fame.

There are different tools you should utilize to envision in your domain’s past. Try Wayback Machine or Whoxy to begin with.

9. Research Social Media Handles

After all, when you’ve an internet business presence, your domain name isn’t the only thing that matters! Within the digital age, you would like social media, too. It’s crucially essential to think about social media when selecting your domain.

You’ll need to have social media handles which can be, ideally, the identical as your domain (or not less than very similar). So, whilst you’re checking domain name availability, be certain to check social media sites to see if matching handles can be found, too.

10. Don’t Miss Out On A Deal

Whether you’ve an enormous corporation or a small business, you most likely have a budget on your website. But in the event you’re running a small business otherwise you’re self-employed, that budget is perhaps pretty tight.

Domain name prices can vary by loads, depending on many aspects. Often, one in every of those aspects might be how popular a desired domain name option is perceived to be. If your required domain is taken into account “premium,” it could cost a whole bunch of hundreds of dollars!

Alternatively, once you’re latest to constructing web sites and registering a website, sometimes you possibly can luck out and find low introductory prices — scoring invaluable domains at deep discounts this fashion.

In case you see an amazing deal for a great domain name, don’t hesitate to act!

11. Protect Your Brand With Multiple Domains

Let’s say you snag the right .com address. You’re done, right? Well, not necessarily!

It’s possible you’ll still want to think about purchasing other TLD variations and having them redirect to your site. You possibly can even go a step further and buy common misspellings of your domain name and redirect those, too. That way, you never miss out on traffic attributable to “user error.”

In case you resolve to register multiple TLDs, you possibly can all the time check what number of similar domains with various extensions (TLDs) have been registered worldwide through the use of this tool. It gives you a touch that a particular domain is — or is not — popular and has been registered multiple times in other TLDs or ccTLDs.

You possibly can apply this technique to social media. Even in the event you don’t think you’ll use X (formerly often called Twitter), if the handle matching your domain is obtainable, grab it. It is perhaps good to have in the long run, and by registering it yourself, you prevent anyone else from taking it.

12. Pick The Best Domain Registrar For Your Website

When you’ve chosen your latest domain name, there’s only one step left: registering your domain. For this, you’ll need to decide on a registar, which is the corporate where you buy your domain.

It’s a great idea to buy around for a website registrar since different corporations offer different features at different price points. Listed below are a couple of things to look out for:

• Domain transfers. Check the registrar’s transfer policy. If it’s complicated or expensive to transfer your domain, keep looking.
• Pricing. Some corporations offer lower prices for the primary yr after which increase them when it’s time for renewal. It’s possible you’ll even be locked right into a multi-year contract.
• Expiration policy. In case you forget to renew the lease in your domain, another person can take it from you. Subsequently, search for a registrar that provides automatic renewals and a grace period so that you don’t risk losing your domain.
• Domain privacy protection. As an internet site owner, you’re required so as to add your personal information to a public database. Domain privacy protection hides your primary contact information to assist keep your identity secure.
• Subdomains. You don’t should register subdomains individually. Nonetheless, you’ll need to be certain that your registrar makes it easy so as to add subdomains to your site.
• Domain forwarding/domain redirect.  Discover a registrar that means that you can forward/redirect your recently purchased domain to an under-construction site or a social media handle in the event you’re not yet able to construct a full website.

There are plenty of registrars you should utilize. Nonetheless, in the event you’re considering using a hosting provider, you could need to look into whether additionally they offer domain registration. It’s possible you’ll have the ability to get a great deal by registering your domain with the identical company that hosts your site, which brings us to our last tip!

How To Get A Free Domain With Your Web Hosting

Some web hosts offer a free domain name once you enroll for a hosting plan. This is very common in the event you use an internet site builder. They have the desire to make the method as easy and streamlined as possible for you, so that they help you purchase your domain and construct your site at the identical time.

In case you want the ability of WordPress plus managed hosting on your domain that optimizes the complete experience to assist your online business grow, you would like our DreamPress service. DreamPress — managed WordPress hosting — plans make WordPress faster, safer, and easier to make use of. To top it off, every one in every of our plans comes with a free domain name!

Or, in the event you have already got a registered domain, we’ll allow you to migrate it to WordPress without cost. You furthermore mght get built-in caching, one-click staging, bulletproof backups, and 24/7 support from our highly-trained WordPress pros.

A Strategic Approach To Selecting The Perfect Domain Name

Your domain name is your likelihood to go away a great first impression on visitors to your site. That’s why a great domain name is important in the event you want your website to face out and succeed.

In case you’re able to land the right domain name, remember the following tips as you begin your search.

Good luck!