Choosing the right domain name for your website
There are many factors to consider when choosing a domain name, it’s just as important as when you choose the name of your company or the tag line of your company.
How To Choose A Domain Name Top Tips
Simplicity: Keep the domain name simple, avoid hyphens, and numbers if they are not already included in your business name.
Target: If you are a local business targeting a local area, use this within your domain.
Research: Look into the availability of your chosen name, and have variants in order to get the all-important .com
Memorable: Make your domain name memorable to your customers, and make it catchy.
What extension should I use for my Domain?
There are many extensions to choose from, in some cases the main domain extensions you want may have already been allocated/purchased by others. Of course we all associate domain name extensions with .com, so in terms of getting the right domain extension, this would be the right extension to go for primarily. Fortunately these days there are many more to choose from, here is a list of what the various extensions are and how they are interpreted-
Here are some of the top-level domain extensions, and their meanings:
- .com – Commercial
- .edu – education
- .gov – government
- .org – Organisation
- .net – Network
Some domains add more value in terms of marketing, search and SEO such as the above top-level extensions shown above. Extensions such as .gov need to be authorised, for example, if you are a Parish Council then you would qualify. This means that this will be interpreted by a search engine as been a high authority domain, and therefore will think it more important than an extension that does not require an official body to authorise it.
Other top extensions include-
- .info – Information
- .EU – European Union
- .biz – Business
- .coop – Cooperatives
- .int – International
Use your country code
.co.uk – the United Kingdom, if the top-level extensions are not available to you then be country-specific. Google will look at your domain as an indication to where you wish to target. If you are selling a product or service only in the UK – .co.uk will indicate this not only to Google but also to your customers.
Once you have decided on the ideal domain name for you and your business, purchase all other extensions that best suit your company. This stops anyone else from having them, which could be damaging to your business in the wrong hands. You can have all other extensions pointing to your main domain.
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