Whatever your Internet business idea choosing a domain name is going to impact on it’s success or failure. The domain name is the name that visitors will type into their browser to visit your site, for example this sites domain name is businessopportunitiesandideas.co.uk. Domain names come in to parts, the name and the Top Level Domain (TLD) in this case they are businessopportunitiesandideas and .co.uk.
When choosing your domain name you need to consider both the name itself and the TLD you would like. The TLD will depend on what you are using the site for, the TLD .co.uk is intended for UK based businesses which suites this site. However thanks to the dot com bubble the majority of the public will look for a website using the .com extension, therefore if you intend to build a brand around the site it’s a good idea to buy the .com version of the domain too, in this case businessopportunitiesandideas.com. You can then arrange to have one of the domains redirected to the other ensuring that whatever your visitors use they will end up at the right site.
When choosing a name for your domain you should consider the four simple rules that your name should obey:
- identifies what you do.
- Distinguishes you from competitors.
- Is memorable.
- Simple to pronounce making it:
- simple to spell,
- simple to look-up,
- simple to find in the phone book or online.
Your choice will of course be limited by the availability of the domain names you choose. You can check the availability of your chosen name using Heart Internet, they can then register and host your domain - I use them myself and their service is excellent.
It’s important to avoid using someone else’s trademark, you can check the trademark register on the UK Intellectual Property Office website. If you’re intending to build a brand based on the site you might want to consider registering the name as a trademark.
You might not however be interested in building a brand, instead relying on either type in traffic or traffic from the search engines, in which case you will want a domain name that is based on the keywords used by your target audience. For Type in traffic you really want the .com TLD but for search engine traffic the TLD is less important. You can learn more about getting traffic from the search engines in the upcoming Search Engine Optimisation post.
This post is part of my Internet business opportunities series.
This blog is about business opportunities and ideas that I spot, think of or hear about and think are useful and interesting. It is intended to provide ideas and inspriation for you to help you find the right business idea for you to then grow it into a successful business.
Pickydomains.com have set a business up doing just this and are even asking for help because they have that many orders coming in, it costs $50 and if you don’t like any suggessted, you don’t pay.
I think the best domain i ever thought off for a business was loseitback.com a business i setup and then sold a couple of years ago now, its a loss preotection and recovery service.
I’ve mentioned pickydomains.com before here it’s a neat idea for an Internet business.
businessopportunitiesandideas.co.uk does not appear to meet your requirements of simple and easy to spell.
I’d disagree, I believe my target audience of entrepreneurs is able to spell it without a problem.
However I should perhaps have give an example; consider toyz4boyz which most people would (if they only hear the name) spell toysforboys or toys4boys.
Choosing the name of an ancient Greek god for example Dionysus presents more people with spelling problems, especially where there are several accepted alternate spellings.
Hi John,
Thanks for dropping by my site.
This is an interesting topic. Good tips.
I think a good name must also be one that has a rhythm to it. Something that rhymes well.
Think coca cola. Think Marilyn Monroe. Picked that up from Eban Pagen.
SEO-wise, it is good to have your targeted keywords in the domain name.
Cheers,
Jag
Jag,
No problem, enjoyed reading it. I believe your name should say what you do, if it does then you’ll naturally end up with your keywords in the name and viola good for SEO