You’re excited about having your first website and you’ve called in The Webmistress to create a website for you. But what are you going to call it? How do you choose your domain name?
Your domain name is part of your brand so it’s worth giving it some thought. It’s like your name – one of the ways you announce yourself to prospective clients.
As part of your verbal calling card it needs to glide smoothly off your tongue when you’re meeting potential clients.
Let it stand proud, and be be easy to pronounce.
A domain that you have to explain or spell and punctuate is going to be hard work. When you speak to potential clients about your work you will want to direct them to your website, so it’s important that your domain name sounds good when you say it and is memorable.
It’s great if your domain name reflects the service you’re offering and your location. It can be acts as a sound bite for your service e.g. massageinbath.com.
Alternatively you may be sufficiently well-known to use your own name as your brand.
It also plays a part in the search engine optimisation (SEO) of your site as the domain name is part of the Google search.
So it pays to choose a domain name that reflects your business and with whom your target market can identify. We can help you identify your target/niche market
Using keywords
- Choose a domain name that contains keywords that relate to your service and location: e.g. massageinbath.com
- This helps to get good rankings on Google. Google will show sites with the keyword in the domain name near the top of the results
- You may want to be even more specific with keywords that relate to your niche. You can then build your web site around these particular keywords in order to drive some free search engine traffic to your site: e.g. massageforbackpainbristol.com
Domain Extension
- .com, .co.uk, .org. Which one should you use?
- Simple: use the extension that matches your country.
- You can also buy the .com to match your domain and that way if someone types yourdomain.com they will still be directed to your site
- This also safeguards someone buying the .com which could result in confusion or your ‘competition’ having an almost identical domain name
Definitions
- .com – for commerce
- .org – for non-profit organizations
- .net – for network providers
- you can find out more here: internetslang.com/acronym.asp
Easy to spell and remember
- Choose something that is short (or as short as possible), easy for your visitors and clients to type – and to remember when they refer you
- This can work in your favour and you can get more keywords in your domain name
- Make sure there are no unhelpful words accidentally created in your list of keywords (e.g. keywordsuk.com = “keyworks suck” – not the message you want to be sending out there!)