A Guide to Choosing the Perfect Domain Name For Your Business

You’re creating a website for your business, and suddenly the thought strikes you - “What am I going to call it?”. Choosing a domain name or a URL for your website can be quite a stressful experience and requires careful consideration. URL, which stands for Uniform Resource Locator, is entered on a browser’s address bar and is more than just a string of letters. It is the very foundation of your digital identity and is a crucial part of the website design and hosting process. With nearly 2 billion websites in circulation today, the internet can be a vast space and choosing the perfect domain name can be a confusing endeavor.

So, let’s talk more about why your domain name is so important.

• It’s your first impression. Since it’s the first thing your visitors will notice, it’s crucial to make an impression that’s positive and lasting.
• The keywords in your domain name can have a hand in improving your SEO ranking.
• Your domain name is a significant part of your brand identity, much like your business name or logo. When chosen wisely, it can increase brand recognition.

For these reasons and plenty more, it’s essential to choose the right domain name for your business. It’s an undoubtedly time-consuming process. In order to make this process easier, we have consolidated a few important factors to keep in mind.

1. Stick with .com

Your Top-Level Domain (TLD) name follows after your site name. The most commonly used ones are, .com, .org, and .net. Your best bet would be to use a TLD that’s been around the longest, is the most popular, and is familiar to internet users. So, .com. There are a plethora of novel and wacky domain name extensions, like .pizzaand .ninjathat are available today, but it’s wise to stick to .com since it’s the most established, credible, and memorable. Don’t let a strange name reduce your traffic.

2. Incorporate keywords strategically

Search engines determine your search rankings by looking at your domain name. So, it’s imperative to include keywords for your domain name that are relevant to your website. If you’re looking for keywords that represent your content accurately, and are out of ideas, try Google Keyword Planner, a free tool that lets users explore keywords by search volume. However, be careful not to awkwardly stuff your domain with keywords, which can make your website seem generic.

3. Make it easy to pronounce and spell

Word-of-mouth advertising is extremely powerful. You don’t want to end up with a domain name that looks cool but is hard to write down or deliver verbally. This rings especially true if you’re planning to use your domain name in order to create a professional business email address. In essence, you want your domain name to be passed around by people easily and effortlessly.

4. Keep it short

Shorter domain names are farmoreeasier to remember and type. On a quest to exhaust all potential keywords, if you end up with an unbelievably long domain name, you are bound to look suspicious. Plus, visitors will be more prone to entering typos, ultimately leading them to an error page and causing you to lose traffic. Aim for 6 to 14 characters and remember, shorter is better.

5. Keep it niche and brandable

If you want your business to stand out (and avoid legal issues), brainstorm a unique, brandable domain name. It should be catchy and memorable. I think we all can agree that “ebay.com” so much more brandable than “buystuffonline.com”. The way you choose to express your brand is important, because consumers often make purchase decisions through subconscious brand associations.

6. Leave room for expansion

Be specific, but not too specific. Of course, you want to stick to a domain name that’s very much related to your industry/niche. However, you also want to think long-term over short-term. For example, if your company currently sells rose bouquets, you might be tempted to name your website “rosebouquets.com”. However, there’s a chance you might expand your business and start selling orchids, or flower vases, which might prevent you from attracting consumers interested in the other two categories. And trust us, changing a domain name once it’s already established, is a long and frustrating process, which can cause you to lose out on your search rankings. It’s safer to keep your domain name long-term-friendly and flexible.

7. Do the research

It’s always good to perform a trademark search to find out if a registered business uses a domain name that is similar to or the exact same as yours. A matching name can lead to confusion and potential lawsuits. Remember, an available domain name does not mean that someone else hasn’t claimed it already. Afterall, you’ll also want to be able to use appropriate social media handles for your business. Even a simple google search will give you a rough estimate of companies that already own and operate on the specific domain name.

8. Protect your brand

Even if you managed to secure the perfect domain name, consider purchasing multiple other domain extensions and domain names, and setting up redirects. Purchasing commonly misspelt versions of your domain name is also a smart move to ensure that your customers always end up on your website. Moreover, you can protect your domain from being hijacked (yes, that happens) by keeping your domain in a registrar-lock status, a feature currently offered by quite a few domain registrars. You can even protect your personal details from being exposed by setting up a domain ID protection, which is actually offered by all domain registrars.

There, now that you know how to choose the perfect domain name, you can go ahead and register it. How, you ask? A few things to keep in mind. Firstly, always work with ICANN-accredited (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) domain registrars. Secondly, the price difference for a domain name between two registrars can sometimes be vast, so don’t forget to shop around. Finally, if you plan to launch a website immediately after getting the domain name, and want to avoid dealing with technical unnecessities, it’s always better to purchase the domain name and hosting plan from the same company.

Design Master is among the top app development companies, web design & development companies in Kuwait and SEO companies in Kuwait. We employ some of the Kuwait best website designers and mobile app developers in Kuwait and have years of experience in creating and registering domain names. We aim to always provide the best website design and hosting services in ways that are most conducive and responsive to our clients’ needs.

Thousands of people, every day, are actively registering domain names from all around the world. If you’ve found the name you want, act fast before someone else registers your domain idea. Contact us today to create and register your dream domain name for your business.