Selecting a great domain name can be very important to the success of your online business so try to find such a name that will guarantee the victory.
Finding a domain name that guarantees success is a question, which is not as easy as it sounds.
Regardless if this is a domain for a private blog, an online shop, or a social network.
The domain name is the exclusive location for each website and the unique online address of a brand or a personal name.
A good domain name will help you make your online success easier and give you a boost in expanding your audience. A wrongly selected domain name could discourage your site‘s visitors and harm yours or your brand’s reputation.
Choosing a successful domain name for your startup — a fashion blog, shop, other online business, or personal site can be a hassle.
However, you can find out how to do it with ease by following the bits of advice shared here.
What it means “A right domain name for a website “?
“A right name for a website” would be a specific name, easy to remember and related to your company name, brand, or business activities that help your clients and audience to spot and discover your presence and activities online.
How to pick up the right domain for your site?
There are many ideas shared on how to select the best name for a startup or a brand.
The domain name will represent your personal or brand name; hence similar rules will apply when selecting it.
1. Don’t get too excited.
At first, I put this paragraph at the end, but then I moved it to be the number one rule because of its importance.
This part is the most critical guideline to respect when searching for a new domain name.
Don’t forget about it, and always keep it in your mind. Let me clarify what I mean by saying not to get too excited.
When people find an available domain name (not registered), the initial excitement is a common reason for costly mistakes, and I have made it myself twice.
If this is the first time when discovering a new name that might seem to be the domain of your dreams, please don’t buy it the next minute.
People make bright and stupid decisions every minute.
If you make a mistake with your domain’s name, you can probably take another one at a later stage, but this is not the point.
When at some point, you encounter something that seems to be a precious finding — give it a few moments to settle down and try to think more clearly. Think critically.
I would say the domain’s purchase can wait for few days or even weeks, but if you reckon your selection is entirely outstanding, you can ignore this free tip.
2. Make it Memorable.
The name of your site must be easy to remember.
People ignore things difficult to remember. Consider also the number of the existing, registered online web sites.
Some of these are or will be competitors of yours.
Choosing a name easy to remember is especially important when your name or brand is new.
Some Examples of Memorable domain names: Some standards of well-chosen, memorable domain names are Mashable, Brandless, or Snapchat.
3. Try to Use your Brand name.
To make an URL a trademark of your company, consider including your brand’s name in it.
A brandable name for domains means there is no specific descriptive meaning or keywords in the domain name, but wit speaks about the brand hen you see the domain name,
This task can be tricky sometimes, but nothing is impossible.
Below you can find free tools to discover the best brandable name that works for you.
Notes: It would be ideal to choose the selected name for your web site as your brand name.
For instance, many people use their First names or Family names or combinations of these as branded names for their own domains.
In case you can’t reserve a particular name that incorporates your brand name only, then tries to look for something similar or use combinations of letters or words, prefixes, and suffixes.
Some Examples of Branded domain names:
Some illustration of domain names with brands included in Google, Apple, Facebook, eBay, or Amazon.
4. Select a Brief Name for Your Domain.
The shorter your domain name is, the simpler it will be for people to remember it.
In the ideal case scenario, the right domain for your site should be with a length somewhere between 1–15 symbols.
Ideally, the successful domain name incorporates two words maximum when this is workable. I would suggest you try your best and search for a suitable name up to 8 letters.
If you look around and explore deeper about the recommended length of the domain names, you will discover most experts will advise you to avoid exceeding 10–15 symbols in the name of your domain when this is possible.
Some Examples of short domain names:
By checking the famous brand names around, you will find out that many of them have selected names limited to a maximum of ten symbols.
Good examples of domain names with a length well below 15 symbols are Moz.com, Cars.com, or Hotels.com.
Notes:
Every rule has an exception, so consider the above as a suggestion, but do not forget that a domain with a name like DomainNameSales, was still a good choice even if the text selected for the name is not the shortest one.
Great examples where the domain name’s length exceeds the recommended earlier values is Quintessentially or SearchEngineJournal. You can see that domain names with 16 or 19 symbols and three words included still work ideally.
5. Think about Reading and Pronunciation.
While selecting a distinguished name that is brandable and short enough to remember, it is essential to remember one more thing.
The domain name must be easy to read and easy to pronounce. This simple but important detail is critical from a marketing point of view.
Imagine a case when people talk about the existence of your website and try to spell its name.
A complicated to read or pronounce name could be the reason to lose visitors and potential clients who might go to your competitors instead.
As you know, a difficult to pronounce or read text can also be easily mistaken or misspelled.
6. Use the power of Catchy words.
Use powerful words that trigger emotions when selecting a name for your domain.
Include words such as Hot, Now, Free or Easy in the name.
This will help to create initial engagement. Then curiosity will evoke visitors to come to your site.
7. Include some Popular words that People search for.
Including a thoroughly selected keyword or keywords in the name of your domain can help a lot with monetizing your website.
This method is one of the ways to compete with strong rivals from the beginning.
Selecting the suitable keywords requires time and effort, but be sure your efforts will pay off after time.
There are free and paid tools available to assist you with this simple but time-consuming task.
Notes: The term “Popular words” usually equals “A Strong competition.”
8. Try to find a domain with.COM extension.
If you wonder what TLD to use for domain registration and you have a choice, I will recommend not to wander around much about it.
Nowadays, the List of Internet top-level domains offers almost unlimited possibilities, but you can stick to something ending with.COM, .NET or.ORG would be a good move.
Check out The latest global TLD distribution stats of the Top 30 search engine positions of Google.
If necessary, you can select.EDU for an extension of your domain, which can sometimes be a better choice.
The same is valid for.SHOES (if your business is relevant or related to shoes somehow) or a country-specific top-level domain (also known as ccTLD or Country Code Top-Level Domain), and so on.
Keep in mind that the people would still search for The Dot-Com first, and this will be their primary choice in the result pages, unless your site, business, or domain exists for a long time or represents a reputable, well-known company.
Please have a look at this Statistics about Domain Count to understand better what my point is.
9. Consider using synonyms in the Domain Name.
Depending on what you search for, the chances of finding precisely the domain you initially thought of are not always great.
I can ensure that if you look for a single-word domain name, especially if the words are ubiquitous, you will see someone else has already taken the domain. You can double-check this out.
When the previously planned words for the name of your new domain are not available, you can still try to use the synonyms’ power.
Most times, by searching for synonyms, you might even discover that your initial plans about how your new domain name should sound and look like haven’t been that good.
10.Implement Pronouns in the name of your Domain.
Having pronouns such as Me, Mine, You, Yours, and so on the present in the name of a domain can be beneficial in two ways.
First, it can bring a personality to the domain itself (check out AboutMe or YouTube, for instance).
Second, by using pronouns, you can go for shorter domain names that look amazing and elegant.
Last but not least, advantage — a pronoun used in the domain name can convey a clarification for the use of your website (check MySpace or SheLikes, for instance).
Simple!
11. Don’t be too specific.
When exploring different variants of brand new domain names, remember that using broad match words might help you a lot with the choice.
In the past, choosing a nice and clear one-word name for a domain was and successful way to climb to the top of the search engines’ result pages.
Now things are slightly different.
Going back to the example with the shoes mentioned earlier — if your visitors and potential clients search on the Internet for “running shoes,” they probably will be more than happy to receive results from a query “shoes for sports,” too.
If you pick up a domain such as “RunningShoes” or “ShoesForSports” this is fine. However, if you succeed in buying a domain “TheShoes” “OnlyShoes” or “YourShoes” then this will be better for at least two good reasons.
One is Flexibility, while the other is the Perspectives.
I believe now you understand my point about the flexibility in selecting a more generic domain name.
Let see the second example where I will explain the perspectives.
Imagine you are starting a blog dedicated to traveling and places in the UK only.
Your plans will probably include Travel Guides and Destinations (or Places) to be your main topics in the United Kingdom.
Sounds good.
You can get a domain with a clear name like “TravelAndPlacesInUk” or “TravelAndPlaces”-Dot-co.uk, or similar.
What will happen when your blog expands (someday, eventually), you go further and include other destinations around the world too?
Here even using a nice ccTLD like CO.UK in combination with a particular topic or topic can be a limitation at some point.
The same will be if you choose specific keywords in the tour domain name ut then change your mind.
Let’s say you have decided on “MagazineAboutSomeTopic,” and then you decide to go for “BlogAboutSomeTopic” instead.
You know what I mean.
Being super specific with certain topics or a topic on a blog or website has remarkable benefits, but choosing a very topic-specific domain name might be a significant disadvantage at a later stage, so think about it.
12. Avoid some symbols.
Some of the standard symbols from the keyboard cannot be used in the domains’ names because of restrictions.
The symbols I would like to talk about are not restricted ones, and these might tempt you.
Using numbers in the domain name is relatively often practice, but if there is a choice where you can avoid them, you better use it.
If you see no other option, then go for it, but check out what numbers people like and how to use them for marketing your site.
Using hyphens in the domain name is worse than using numbers. Hyphenated domain names are hard to read or pronounce and hard to remember. Hyphenated domains are usually more difficult to sell.
Hyphens in the domain name might be why people can’t reach your website, which is why these must be avoided.
The hyphenated domain names also have some advantages.
The first advantage is that it is relatively easy to find a new domain by using hyphens in the name, and the second is that hyphenated names can be useful to avoid the “slurl” issue.
13. Make it Understandable.
When people are searching on the Internet, they hope they will find it easy. Whatever domain you choose, in the end, it should give the users some clue what to expect more or less, just before they click the link to your website.
The latter means you will have to sweat up and develop something relevant and intuitive.
If you don’t like such a suggestion, then check out the next one.
14. Let the visitors be Curious.
If you don‘t like the above suggestions, then you can try another strategy. Choose a fancy name that provokes curiosity.
The only trouble here is that you may end up with many visitors who never come again.
Many successful startups have succeeded by using such an approach.
This means it might work for you too.
15. Use your Imagination.
In the process of choosing a decent name for your domain, you must be creative. I mean really CREATIVE (I’m sorry for the shouting).
If you go for something which is not traditional, brand new, and smashing the use of intentionally done Misspellings, made-up or mashed-up words can be a proper choice.
Suffix or a prefix is a good idea too. Some examples are theNextWeb, Tumblr, Reddit, Foundr, MentalFloss, Instagram, Pinterest, and thousands more.
16. Ask your Mother
Discussing your ideas and choices with some close relatives and friends can only bring new ideas and put a light on aspects you have maybe never thought about.
Share your concepts with people who care about you and might be helpful. Don’t get afraid to get criticism back, listen well, and take advantage of the provided for free feedback.
In fact, this is the main idea behind this advice.
The sooner, the better.
The fair opinions and new concepts brought by parents, siblings, or some of the best friends are always precious.
Something at the End
If you look around, you see that most successful sites have a great domain name.
Therefore, selecting the right domain name for a website is very important.
If the domain name of your website is complicated, then potential customers may skip it.
This is because they will think your domain is irrelevant to their search. The domain names should define what your site is and what it does.
The shared essential tips, used along with some available tools and resources, will help you find a domain name that brings success.
More Useful Resources
Free Tools to use for finding a great name for your domain:
Google Trends — helpful to look at the trends of keywords people are searching for online and give you a clue what is interesting for them.
Google Keyword Planner — suitable to check the average volume of online searches for particular keywords per month.
Some of the best Free Domain name generators
Namemesh.com
Namesmith.io
Panabee.com
Namestation.com
Domainnamesoup.com
Leandomainsearch.com