PHWinfo - It's all in the Name

Now that they are much easier to obtain, it is hard to take any site that does not have it's own domain name very seriously. Without a domain name, a company is likely to be passed off as amateurish or seen to want to cut corners to save money. If you have a company site and you still haven't got a domain name for your website, then you might want to think about getting one!

Make iot memorable

The best domain names are those that people can remember, because if your visitors can remember it, they are more likely to come back. If you do not already have a company or other name selected for your site, then it is often a good idea to make your domain name the brand for the site. Tying your site name to the domain is just one way you can help your visitors remember how to find you again.

Tips for choosing the most memorable domain name:

Keep it short and easy to spell.
Make use of keywords or popular search terms whenever possible.
Generic terms are like gold dust if you can get them.
The more unusual but familiar sounding a domain, the better.
Add a twist, some domain names are remembered for being different to what you would expect to find there (e.g. monster.co.uk).

One of the major problems of trying to promote a specific domain name is that in general, people (or sometimes browsers) assume that they end in a .com. If your site uses a domain other than a .com, then you may want to make the domain your site identity, otherwise you could have your visitors remembering the domain name but not the extension and going to related site that isn't your own!

Domain Branding.

If you purchase your domain with the intention that it will become the brand that you promote, then it is worth taking into account the specifics of the domain. Keywords can play an important part in your brand, particularly if it is specific to your industry, as they will help to make your domain name memorable while improving your search engine rankings.

In the case of directories such as Yahoo and DMOZ sites are usually listed in alphabetical order, so anything starting with A, B or C has a much better chance of being higher on the list than those starting with X, Y or Z, and so is more likely to be noticed. Don't however be tempted to use a domain that has been "padded out" to get a high position in an alphabetically sorted list; not only will it look tacky and amateurish, but most directories use human editors who would pick up this obvious trick and either correct it or ignore the site altogether.

Take me seriously.

If you own a business and you want to have an online presence then your choice for suitable domain names is usually limited to some variant of the company name. It is probably worth pointing out that some extensions have been devalued because of the way they have been used in the past; so extensions such as .vu, .to and .it could make your business site feel more like a personal homepage.

Another thing to avoid is the use of "cool" domains; using numbers or letters to replace words is only going to confuse anyone who wants to find your site by typing in your domain. If you really must register such a domain, then be sure to register the expanded form and point it to the same site so as to pick up any visitors that were unsure which to use.

Don't Leave It too Late.

Competition for domain names is higher than ever since the average price of a domain fell, and so there is a chance that your ideal domain name has been taken. The longer you wait before buying your domain name, the more difficult it will be to make the changes later on down the line.

A case in point is that of a small firm in my area that used the free web space that came with their dailup account. Rather than paying for a domain name (which was about ?75 at the time), they opted to use a sub-domain with their ISP and promoted their URL on their vans and letterheads. For a year or so, they looked professional since there weren't many local businesses on the web, but when the prices for domain names started to crash, the URL suddenly looked tacky and amateurish. If they had got their domain name when they first developed their site, they could have saved the extra time and cost they spent to fix the problem.

Fortunately most paid hosting will require you to either use a registered domain name with the account or to register one through them; which will help to minimize these sorts of problems in the future.

The author, Rosemarie Wise, is a self proclaimed "web enthusiast" who set up her site, Web Site Owner to share her experiences of being a site owner.