What makes a great domain name

Domain names are the addresses of the internet.  Get a bad one and you’ll never be found or remembered.  Register domain names that are good and your business will stick clearly in the minds of consumers without the need for additional marketing and reminders.

Often a website domain will become the business name as well.  That is how important domain names are in both the functionality of people accessing your information and also marketing and branding.

But what is the difference between a totally forgettable domain name and a great one?  How do you come up with a great domain name for your business?  What are the characteristics of all the popular domain names?  How do you go about this whole business of domain name registration?

Here we explore the secrets of domain registration to guide you through the process of securing your next online address.

1. Size Does Matter

Except not the way you think.  For domain name registration shorter is better.  Why?  Shorter is more memorable.  You want your domain name as memorable as possible so that your clients can access it quickly and easily.

2. Don’t Make It A Spelling Contest

Forget about switching ‘s’ to ‘z’ or ‘I’ to ‘ee’.  Your customers will want to spell the word naturally and attempting to remember that it’s a different spelling from normal will frustrate them.  Stick to properly spelled words.

3. Self Explanatory

Domains like ‘carguide’ and ‘gamblingspot’ are very clear on what the website is about.They use short natural words that are easy to remember that in conjunction deliver a meaning to the customer before they’ve even landed at the website.   Your business brand name is also self explanatory if you already have brand equity.  For instance, Mercedes is much better owning ‘mercedes.com’ than ‘upmarketeuropeancars.com’  Choose the domain registration name that best suits your company.

4. Use real words and phrases

In order to keep it short, it may be tempting to create a word no one has ever heard of before.  This does work on occasion as long as the word make phonetical sense to the native readers (ie: for Australians, do not use the combination of tx or ll.  English does not have these sounds in it.).  If this is not possible, stick with real words and phrases as, even though it is longer, it is more memorable.

5. .com or .com.au extension

Regardless of how common it is becoming for websites to use .net or .org, users will always gravitate to .com or .com.au first. If you have only secured another extension you may be sending customers to someone else’s website. Register domain names with .com or .com.au first.

6. No hyphens or numbers

It can be tempting to substitute the sound ‘ate’ for the letter ‘8’.  This is similar to misspelling a word and confuses customers.The only time a number should be used in a domain name is when it is actually part of the business name.Hyphens can ensure you get the right words in the domain but look tacky and less professional.Use them as a last resort.