8 Tips for Choosing the Perfect Domain Name
In this article, we look at the ways you can select the best domain name suited for your business. Know how to go about making this selection, which tools can help you search for a good domain name as well services that can help you acquire a parked or on the sale domain name.
When you are starting a new project or opening a new business, it is essential, with a few isolated exceptions, to think digital. As in the offline world, it is important that we can be easily identified and found. Domains are our gateway, the equivalent on the Web to a postal address or a store located on the main street.
An Internet domain is nothing more than a digital address, which transforms the intricate networking of the Internet into words that are easy to remember. Few would remember the address http://216.58.201.131, but its Google.com equivalent would. Taking advantage of this "translation", we must choose the best domain name for our business, service or project, so that we can get regular traffic. Therefore, finding the right domain name is one of the first steps to achieve our goals.
In the end, the domain name is usually our brand, which is our main identifier among customers. Your brand and domain go hand in hand and one is not usually differentiated from the other. A current or potential customer will think of that brand and will expect to find it in the corresponding Internet address.
Consequently, you must follow these tips to choose that domain-brand name from a domain broker. 1. Available domain
First of all, and most obviously, the domain name we are thinking of must be available. A serious mistake is to build your brand around a domain that is already occupied. Services such as http://who.is indicate this circumstance. Also, even if it is occupied, the owner's email will appear for a hypothetical acquisition negotiation.2. No current trademark protection
Not every name can or, at least, should not be registered. Certain names with trademark rights can get us into future legal disputes. It is not only an issue with the exact name of a registered trademark, but any similar phonetic variation that may lead to confusion. You can check the registration of trademarks at the United States Patent and Trademark Office, at https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/search. 3. SEO Name
One of the biggest sources of visits to a web page is still the search engines. The goal is to appear among the first when a user searches for a word or string of words in the search engine. If your domain contains that word or group of words, you will get more links from other sites using those words. And those "quality" links count to a great extent to be well-positioned in the search engine, mainly Google. It is also important for SEO to differentiate yourself from competitors already well-positioned in the result4. Differentiated
It is very common to think of generic addresses, i.e., that do not identify the sector in general. For example, if you are a florist, the logical impulse is to want to have "flowers.com" (do not bother to check its availability). At this point, after three decades of the existence of domains and speculators, it is difficult to get hold of these succulent domains, unless you go to the secondary market and let go of your chequebook. On the other hand, nowadays differentiation is a must. It is true that the reference domain in our sector will bring us many visits, but they will not always be recurrent, nor will we achieve a sufficient differentiating factor in terms of marketing. 5. Easy to remember
You should look for a short domain name (no more than 8 characters) that is relevant to the industry you are targeting and is in the form CVCVCVCVCV (consonant and vowel). If you want a fantasy name (not existing as a word in the language) tiy can resort to the combination of several real words, to other languages, to combinations of words belonging to dead languages such as Latin or Greek. Or to variations of Anglicisms, which always look "glamorous" and international.6. Easy to type
It should not lead to misunderstandings or include numbers. You should be especially careful with the inclusion of letters that may lead to confusion due to lack of phonetic differentiation: for example, the X with the S, the H, the W, or the B as opposed to the V. Numbers also tend to be bad partners in memorization.7. Beware of strange meanings
It is necessary to check that the chosen domain does not have offensive meanings in other languages, or that it is associated with negative terms by sonority or wordplay in our language.8. Pronounceable
Let's pay attention to the sonority and pronunciation of our domain. It must be simple to refer to and to dictate so that there are no misunderstandings.
