Tips on How to Choose a Domain Name for Your Business
Online businesses are increasing in their popularity, especially after the pandemic situation and rise in remote working. If you’ve been thinking about starting an online business, one of the first obstacles you came across is how to choose a domain name for your business, right?
I’ve been there and everyone else has been there. Any website you visit was there once. No matter how established a website is – its owner had to do exactly the same thing you’re about to do now.
Brainstorm and choose a perfect domain name for a business purpose.
Domain names are also considered as a “parking spot” for your website, or in some cases, they’re treated as “real estate” of the internet.
A domain name can have a lot of effect on your internet presence and the way you build out your business or a brand.
Down below, I’ll show you how I do a brainstorming session before registering a domain, how I make a list full of quality domains, and how I pick the best one.
Brainstorming Session is Important
No matter how creative you are – brainstorming is important. Why?
Because it’s where ideas are born. You might come up with an idea or two when you least expect it and that’s awesome.
But if you dedicate your time to a brainstorming session to really come up with your ideas, and you do it old-school way with the help of a pen and paper – your creative juices will flow like crazy!
And guess what?
It’s never a bad idea to have a list full of potential domain names for your business.
But there’s one thing you should do before brainstorming. You need to know your niche or at least what your business will be based on.
This will help you come with all sorts of words or combinations that you could turn into a very catchy domain name.
I wrote a full post on how to choose a niche and this is helpful for any type of business (both online and offline), so I recommend reading it before making further progress!
How to Choose a Domain Name for Your Business
Choosing a domain name is always the most exciting part for me, especially when creating a new online business.
Therefore, I bet you’re all fired up to start throwing names on the paper.
However, there are a couple of tips I’d like to let you know before you get on with your brainstorming session.
There are a couple of “rules” that you can follow to choose a quality domain name that will represent your business well.
Here are some of these “rules”:
- Choose a domain name of up to 3-4 words max
- Avoid using dashes
- Don’t worry about adding any keywords in the domain name
- Make it easy to pronounce and spell
- Avoid double letters
What would happen if you don’t follow these “rules”? Nothing! Your business wouldn’t be determined to fail, you won’t have problem ranking in search engines, and you won’t have a problem driving traffic to your site.
However, I highly recommend you consider these rules, especially when you go through the elimination process.
This will help you create a short, catchy, easy to pronounce, and attractive domain name. Why is this important?
Because you won’t only be getting traffic virtually. As people get to know about your business, they’ll most likely spread a good word about it if they find it valuable.
A brandable name that’s easy to remember and recognize will help you establish a brand with the help of internet presence a lot easier.
Therefore, this will help you later on with any marketing campaigns and business decisions you will be doing. Combine a catchy domain name with a simple yet catchy logo – and you get a great base to start a brand around.
A Great Example
For example, have a look at some of the most known brands you hear about on a daily basis:
- Adidas
- Nike
- Samsung
- Apple
These are brands and companies in very different industries, yet they have one thing in common.
Their name (also a domain name) is short, catchy, and recognizable.
It can be hard to find a one-word domain name for your business, but there are many businesses that have a domain name with two or three words. However, I wouldn’t recommend you to include more than 3 words.
Therefore, you get to choose almost any domain name that’s available out there – but if you pay attention and learn how to choose a domain name for your business in a proper way, this will definitely help you in the long run.
One Mistake You Should Avoid
Remember how I mentioned that you shouldn’t use dashes in your domain name?
This makes it harder for people to directly search you, but it also can lead to another mistake.
For example, if there is a two-word domain name that is taken by another business, technically, you can get the same domain name by including dashes in between the words.
But this isn’t right. Your business can be in the shadow of the actual business that runs under the domain name.
However, you could also face some legal battles if you try to “steal” and “brand” your business around the name of an established and well-recognized company.
Therefore, even when you are sure that you have the right domain – try checking out similar domain names.
No one wants their business to be in the shadow, right? Yet with everything happening digitally – one letter can change everything.
Checking Domain Name Availability
You can check for the domain name availability during the brainstorming session, or you can check it out only when you shorten the list to a couple of domain names.
But how do you check if your domain name is available?
It’s very simple to do since this can be done in hundreds of places on the internet.
My favorite way to do it is either through a Jaaxy tool which is a keyword research tool that allows you to look up domain names too.
Or through a SiteRubix website builder which also helps you to see if the domain name is available or not, in only seconds.
But you can go straight to some of the domain name sellers & providers such as NameCheap to use their domain search bar.
Conclusion
Choosing a domain name is one of the obstacles almost anyone who tries to create an online business deal with.
However, I personally know that it’s one of the things that can scare away or even put everything on hold for some people.
Therefore, you shouldn’t overthink the process. All you have to do is find a niche, follow the tips, and start brainstorming.
After you have created a list of possible domain names – sleep on it, and then try to eliminate domain names you don’t like until you find that one you like the most.
Did you ever wonder if there are any secrets on how to choose a domain name for your business?
Even though there are no secrets – there are tips you can follow. It’s all about creativity. But if you need any help, have any questions, or would like to add anything to this article – leave a comment down below!
