Tips for Choosing a Domain Name
What makes a good domain name? Below are some general tips regarding how to pick the best one for your website.
- Keep it short - Long domain names are hard to remember and increase the chance for misspellings.
- Keep it simple - Your domain name should be simple enough to remember. Avoid unusual foreign words, words that have complex pronunciation, strange combinations of letters and anything else that might cause someone to misspell your address.
- Avoid hyphens - People don't naturally include hyphens when typing in domain name from memory. You might lose valuable traffic to your website if you are using hyphens in your name.
- Avoid numbers - Using numbers in your domain name can get confusing for your visitors. They might wonder if they're supposed to use a numeral (ex. 3, 4, 5) or if they should spell the number out (ex. three, four, five).
- Use the .com extension - If you're building a business website, you should try to find a good .com name that's still available. This extension is the most popular around the around, and it is already stuck in people’s mind. If you absolutely can't find a good name that's still available as a .com, you might want to consider .net or .biz. And if you're building a website for a non-profit organization, naturally you should choose a .org domain name.
- Use your business or website name - This might seem obvious, but you'd be surprised at what some people use as their web address. Sometimes the name has nothing to do with their business name! To keep things easy for your customers, it's best to use your business name if possible. For example, Auxano Creative becomes www.auxanocreative.com.
- Get opinions - A great test to see if your chosen domain name meets the qualifications of being simple, easy to remember, and easy to spell is to ask around. Ask your friends, family, co-workers, etc. what they think of your name.
