How To Choose A Domain Name

How To Choose A Domain Name

This post is the first in a 4-part series of essential steps in getting a website up and running.

Much like your business name is your identification in the commercial world, a domain name is your identification on the internet. Examples of domain names include the following:

www.example1.com
www.example2.com
www.example1.net
www.example2.net
www.example1.ca
www.example2.ca

Most businesses try and find a domain name similar to their business name, take for example how The Home Depot operates online under the domain name www.homedepot.com. Another option is to register a domain name under your most popular product or service, for example, if your business name was something like A&A Bicycles, you could try to register something like www.bicycles.com and have that as the A&A Bicycles website domain name. However, the likelihood of registering a domain name under your top product is probably quite small – most of the ‘popular’ domain names were snatched up well over a decade ago. So, for the sake of this article, we’ll go ahead and assume the domain name you want reflects the name of your business.

A couple things to consider when planning your domain name, as taken from http://www.domainregistry.com/faq.jsp:

1. A domain name can be up to 63 characters PLUS the extension (.com, .net, .org etc.) Keep in mind that domain names longer than 22 characters (plus the extension) may not be compatible with older browsers, e-mail programs or certain Internet applications.

2. A domain name can contain characters (A-Z), numbers (0-9), or both.

3. A domain name can contain a dash “-” (example: psych-online.com).

4. “Case” (upper or lower) does not matter with domain names. The domain name “Larry.com” is the same as “LARRY.COM” or “LarRy.Com”.

Once you choose your domain name, try and register that name with the “.com” extension, if available. Dot-com domain names are by far the most popular and widely used domain extensions, and if the dot-com extension is available, there is no point considering any other extension. To check and see if a domain name is available (unregistered), try using a service like that found at http://www.domains.com/.

Once you’ve settled on an acceptable domain name, you’ll need to register that name. However, there are some important things to consider before doing this…so stay tuned for our next post on how to register a domain name!

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