How to Pick a Great Domain Name

In this lesson, we will discuss how to pick a great domain name for your website. In the previous lessons, we went over how to find an idea for a website, what goes in to website content development, and choosing keywords for your website. Putting this all together will help you choose the best domain name for your website.

You need to take your time when choosing your domain name because it can determine how hard or easy your website will be to promote. Below are some guidelines on how to pick a great domain name.

Your Domain Name Should Describe Your Website

By refining your website concept through research, you should be able tell people what your site is about using only two or three words. These are your main keywords for your website.

Using these keywords in your domain name will tell people exactly what your site is about. For example, if we are building a website that focuses on cat supplies, the domain name "catsupplies.com" tells people exactly what the website is about. On the other hand, "cats.com" suggests that the website is about cats in general, but not specifically about cat supplies.

Using keywords in your domain also helps you gain better search engine rankings. Search engines give more value to domain names that contain the keywords that people are searching for, and will rank websites that have the specific keyword in the domain name higher.

Your Domain Name Should Be Your Website Name

This may seem like common sense, but your website name should match your domain name. Having your website name and domain name the same makes it easier for people to remember and return to your website. For this reason, it is best to hold off on choosing a website name until you have registered a domain name.

What if you already have an established offline business? You should definitely try to get your business name as your domain name.

Your Domain Name Should Be Easy to Say, Spell, and Remember

You want to make sure that your domain name is easy to remember, especially after people see it or hear it. If you were to tell someone what your domain name is, would they know how to spell it?

Make sure that none of the words in your domain name can easily be confused with another word. For example, maneattraction.com and mainattraction.com sound the same, but are spelled different.

Another thing to consider is different variations of the same word. For example, if you were to tell someone that your website is womansforum.com, there is the possibility that they would type in womensforum.com when searching for your website.

Keep Your Domain Name As Short As Possible

Even though the majority of short domain names (single word domains) have already been taken, you still want to keep your domain name as short as possible.

A domain name can be up to 67 characters long, but you don't want to take up all 67 characters. This is because people won't be able to remember it, much less spell it without mistakes. For our cat supply example, the following domain name would probably not be a good choice: thebestcatsuppliesandproductsaround.com.

Choose The Most Appropriate Extension For Your Domain

An extension is what appears at the end of your domain name. Domains that end with .com are the most common and are shown by the search engines first, above the .net (networks), .org (non-profit organizations) and .biz (business) extensions.

If you have a highly recognized business, I would suggest registering not only the .com form of your domain name, but also the .org, .net, and .biz forms as well. This can help prevent the dilution of your domain name.

Country-Specific Domain Extensions

You can also choose a country specific extension if your business only serves and operates in a specific country. Here are some country specific extensions (there are also extensions for other countries that aren't listed here)

.ca is for Canada
.fr is for France
.us is for the United States
.uk is for the United Kingdom

Country specific domain names will have a top-level country code (i.e. uk) and a subcategory code such as .co (for commercial enterprises) or .org (for non-commercial organizations). For example, catsupplies.co.uk would be for a commercial cat supply company based and serving the United Kingdom.

Remember, if you get a domain name that has an extension other than .com, be sure that you promote your website name with the full domain name.

How to pick a great domain name: Doing your research

Write down the main concept keywords for your website, as well as any benefits that visitors might get from your website. If you have a physical business, write down your business name as well.

Now you can begin your search for possible domain names. To do this, you can use the Search It tool, following the steps below:

Under Step 1 choose Domain Names from the drop-down menu.
Under Step 2 choose Domain Namer and Availability Checker from the drop-down.
Under Step 3 type in your main website keyword.
Under Step 4 type in your secondary descriptive keyword
Click the Search It button

When you click on "Click Here to See Your Results", it will take you to Domain Tools, which lists results for possible domain names that contain your keywords. Domain Tools usually returns more than one page of possible domain names, so be sure to check all of the pages for possible domain names.

Look for domain names with the .com extension

If the domain name has an open circle by it, it signifies that it is available. Concentrate on the available domain names that have the .com or the .net extensions, which are the most common.

Another point to consider is that the Internet Explorer browser automatically inserts .com at the end when someone types in a website name into the address bar without putting an extension on it.

It would be a shame to send visitors to your competition just because they registered their domain with the .com extension and you didn't.

You can also search for domain names that don't have hyphens by clicking on the "new search" button at the top of the Domain Tools page. Make sure that you check the "no" button for the "Hyphens" option at the top.

Using our cat supply example, here are some potential domain names.

Take your most important keywords to search for possible domain names. Make a list of the domain names that seem to have good potential. Remember, they should be short, easy to spell, and describe the benefits of your site.

What If The Perfect Domain Name Is Already Taken?

You'll probably find that the perfect descriptive domain name for your website is already taken. This is where you can get inventive. Here are some options to consider:

Consider using hyphens between the individual words.
Begin your domain name with the word "the", "all", "best", 1st, etc.
End your domain name with "source", "resources", "store", "info", etc.

Using our cat supply example, we were able to expand our possible domain list.

Check To See If The Domain Name is Available

Now you need to take your list of possible domain names and see if they are available to be registered. You can use Search It to do this, by following these steps:

Under Step 1 choose Domain Names from the drop-down menu.
Under Step 2 choose Check Domain Availability from the drop-down.
Under Step 3 type in your first possible domain name (along with the .com, .net, .biz, etc extension)
Click on the Search It button

When the page loads, click on the link at the bottom that reads "Please click here to see your search results". This will take you to the BetterWhois.com website, which will tell you whether your possible domain names are available or not. You can continue to research the availability of your other domain names by typing them into the search box at the bottom of the BetterWhois page.

Using our possible cat supply domain names, here is the availability of the different domain names.

Give Yourself Time To Think Over Your Choices

After going through all the research for finding domain names and checking their availability, you now have a list of potential domain names. Take your list of domain names and rank them according to how well they fit your site concept.

Using the cat supply example, I ranked the possible domain names to help me decide how to pick a great domain name for this topic.

At this point, you probably have one specific domain name that seems perfect for your site. Before you register that name, give yourself at least one day to think it over.

Take your list of potential domain names and ask your friends or family what they think about them. Can they tell from the name what your website is about? Is the name short, simple, and easy to spell?

Sleep on it and see if you still feel as strongly about your domain name in the morning. If you do, then you can take the next step in getting your domain name.

In our next lesson we will go over how to do a free trademark search before you register your domain name.

Next: Free Trademark Search
Previous: Choosing Keywords For Your Website