11 Tips When Choosing Your Domain Name

What’s in a name?

Unlike Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, that which we call a successful domain by any other name definitely would not work as effectively. Like it or not, customers tend to judge your business by what it’s called, so it’s really important you come up with a domain name that is both eye-catching and easy to remember.

We’ve been providing SEO services in Orange County and Los Angeles for a few years now, so we know how to choose the best names for your business. Here are eleven things to consider when choosing your domain name.

1. You Don’t Actually “Own” Your Domain Name

A misconception you may have about registering domain names is that you actually own the name.

You don’t. You’re just occupying it in the meantime. It’s like renting an apartment under a landlord.

You may pay for the domain name regularly, but ultimately you don’t own the domain. If let’s say, you forget to pay for the registration, the name could go up for grabs again and anyone can take it from you.

This isn’t exactly a big deal, but you do need to keep this in mind.

2. Your Business Name and Domain Shouldn’t Necessarily Match

If you’re a local business, then it would make sense to have your business and domain match. This lets the local people know who you are from a glance.

But this needn’t necessarily apply to all businesses.

Let’s take Facebook, for example. They recently rebranded from Facebook to Meta, and yet the social media giant is still hosted on the original domain name. This is because switching domain names would just be confusing for everyone and would probably induce a lot of tears and frustration from developers.

So, if you’re a business that doesn’t have a set name yet, or if your business sounds similar to another business elsewhere, it might be best to just choose a different domain name entirely. 

3. Your Domain Name Should Have Keywords in It

As much as possible, try including keywords in your domain name. Having keywords in your name may not be a ranking factor, but you’re not going to bode well with ambiguous names, especially as a start-up. Your customers want to know what you offer without having to click on your website.

Do you sell tacos? Include taco in your domain name. Are you a stationery shop? Include a stationery-related word in your name.

4. Your Domain Name Should be Short

Nobody likes long domain names. Not only are they hard to spell and remember, but they’re also just not very nice to look at. As much as possible, try and keep your domain name to a maximum of three words.

5. Your Domain Name Should Invoke Meaning

Your domain name needs to sound appealing and inviting. You can use sentimental words like friendly or healing, professional-sounding words like expert and journal, or place-related words like palace or zone to invoke some sense of feeling in your viewers.

6. Refrain From Using Hyphens

Can you use hyphens in a domain name? Sure. Does that mean you should? Not really.

We don’t know what it is about hyphens, but it invokes a feeling of distrust among users. For some reason, people tend to think a site is sketchy or spammy if there’s a hyphen in the name.

Hyphens also invite misspells. If your site is called a-b-c.com and a user instead types in abc.com, they can get redirected to a different site altogether and give up on finding you.

So as much as possible, try to skip the hyphens.

7. Register Domain Variants

If you’ve got the resources, we recommend registering multiple domain names. This ensures that even misspelled domain names lead to yours.

Facebook’s homepage, for example, can be reached by typing in Facebook, Facebok, and FB.

8. Safeguard Other Domains

If you’re particularly good at naming things and have come up with other cool names for your brand, then take the initiative and register for those domains too. Who knows, a future competitor may try and apply for that domain name too.

You should also safeguard .net, .org, .info, and other types of domains. A person elsewhere could register for the same name as your business and cause problems with your rankings.

9. Prioritize .com Above All

(.com) is the most common website ending, and people tend to type it out habitually. If your suggested domain name already has a (.com) counterpart, then building a site with a (.net) or (.org) counterpart probably isn’t worth the effort. You’re better off with a different domain name altogether.

10. Have Country-Specific Domains

Country code top-level domains (ccTLDs) are domains specific to a country. For example, all domains that end with .uk or .ca are domains specific to the United Kingdom and Canada respectively.

So, if your target audience all comes from the same country, it would make sense to have a ccTLD for that country. It increases your local visibility and lessens competition with international brands.

11. Make Sure Your Domain Doesn’t Have a Bad Rep

Make sure to check if your suggested name’s been used before. In some cases, abandoned domain names had been dropped because it was penalized too much by Google. Those penalties could still transfer over to a new owner (a so-called legacy penalty) and may prevent your business from ranking on search engines.

To prevent this from happening, visit archive.org and check if the previous version had done anything to warrant a penalty. If it seems safe, then you’re probably safe to use it too.

Conclusion

Coming up with a successful business name isn’t as simple as it seems, but hopefully, our guide has helped you. And remember, just because you’ve come up with a brilliant name doesn’t mean you can be lax about the rest—you’ll still need to work on things like product quality, SEO, a great web design, and reliable web hosting service to really have a successful business.