So you’ve decided to put a web site up on the Internet. In this article, we will discuss the best way to choose a domain name for your business web site, but many of the same principles apply if you are choosing a name for a hobby or informational site. So, let’s choose a name for your little piece of the Internet.
There are some blunders that people make while choosing a domain name for their site that inhibits its popularity. A good domain name of a site allows people to find your site easily on the Internet. The following would give a fairly good idea of what to avoid while choosing a domain name.
The basic mantra of naming your site is to avoid using numbers in your domain name. Many of the websites on the Internet use numbers either to save letters or to seem different. As an example, a person might name his or her website as www.fun4pets.com for a pet-related website. People who wish to access this site would have to make sure whether the 4 in this domain name is a number or the words
‘for’ or ‘four’. This is how confusing it can get.
Avoid hyphens. It is not advisable to use hyphens in a domain name on your Internet site. They are not easy to remember. When people use hyphens in domain names they presume that the potential customers will remember them, which is quite unlikely. For instance, when customers see a domain name like ‘www.fun-for-pets.com’ they are most probably going to type ‘www.funforpets.com’ because it is
more logical and definitely makes more sense. Thus, avoid superfluous things.
Now that you know what not to do, let’s talk about some of the things you should do when looking for a domain name. First and foremost is to ALWAYS use the «.com» extension for domain names. This is the standard that everyone uses when typing in a URL to their Internet browser, and if you have another extension – .net, .org, .biz, etc. – you may be sending people to another site altogether. If the name you want is not available with «.com» then pick another domain.
Next, you want to make sure that your name is easy to spell. There are a lot of bad spellers out there, and if you choose a name that can be misspelled, it will be. For example, if you choose something like «www.specialoccassions.com», you may get any variation of either word, so people may be typing in «www.spechulokashens.com» (and don’t laugh – I’ve seen worse misspellings on the Internet!).
And finally, try to make sure your domain is short. You will want to try and keep the domain to two, or at most three, words, and also try to keep it under 25 characters. This will keep the mistyped URLs to a minimum. For example, if your URL is «www.thebestwebsiteevernomatterwhat.com», chances are you’ll get a lot of people missing letters and never finding your web site.
You could assume the guidelines stated above to be of a general nature. There are always going to be exceptions to the rule. Just keep in mind these when you give a domain name to your website and you would find that your business would thrive as people would find your website with ease