.com, .org, .net, .biz…What should I use?
This can be a tricky one. Everyone tends to want “.com” – but dot coms are becoming more and more difficult to get a hold of – good ones anyway. Good practice is to think about what the nature of your business is and from there decide what extension works for you.
Popular Alternatives to .com:
- Country specific: these include extensions such as .ca, .de, .co.uk, .us etc. If you have a local business, you might want to keep to the country that you are trading in. If you offer flower delivery in Germany, for example, then you want to use flowerdelivery.de. A dot com in that instance may be confusing – visitors may think that you are an international business as opposed to one only operating in Germany.
- .org: Nonprofits and trade associations normally operate under .org. If you’re not one of these then you should steer clear of that extension. You don’t want to give your visitors the wrong impression.
- .mobi: if you are building a website for use on a mobile phone then you may want to use a .mobi extension.
- .tv: used for media rich pages which incorporate a lot of video.
- .info: this is being used more frequently for information resources.
Should I buy variations of my domain?
So you go to register mywebsite.com and your domain service says to you “would you like to buy “mywebsite.net, mywebsite.org and mywebsite.biz.” Should you buy them? If you do buy them you can redirect all of the pages to your .com. It stops businesses with similar names acquiring them which prevents people going to the wrong page if they incorrectly key in the domain extension for your site.
What domain name should I choose?
Your domain name should be the name of your website, or company. This will avoid any confusion. If you are unable to register a domain with your exact name then try to get a variation. For example, I want to register www.johnsmith.com but unsurprisingly the domain is taken. Instead I try www.jcsmith.com.
How long should a domain name be?
Try to keep your domain name short and to the point. The problem with super long domain names is that there is more opportunity for typos when people are typing them into their address bar. Remember, a domain name is words stuck together and too many words stuck together becomes a big jumble and is difficult to read. The easier your name is to remember, the easier it is to make a website with a devoted userbase. Also, the shorter it is, the easier it is to fit on your business card!
SEO for Your URL
If you can, try to include keywords in your URL. This may not be possible but a good domain name is great for your SEO. If my domain name is www.freelancers.com then a) I appear to be the best freelancer site out there and b) I am going to be a good friend to search crawlers.
Avoiding Hyphens
Where possible avoid the use of hyphens in your domain name. Let’s say you want to register the site www.beautifulcarpets.com but it’s already taken. Instead you go for www.beautiful-carpets.com. A pretty high number of your visitors are going to forget where that hyphen comes. And where are they going to end up? Right on the doorstep of your closest competitor.
There’s quite a lot to think about before registering your domain name. It’s best not to rush into it, although don’t wait around too long or the one you want might be gone. You should secure the domain name of your business as soon as you set it up. If you can’t get your business’ name spend some time brainstorming with your colleagues and employees to find the domain name that sums up your business and works for you. (Hint: It’s a good idea to buy the domain name for your own name as well. You never know when you might need it!)
