Your new website will be an important part of your business. Whether your site is a simple online brochure, or a fully stocked shop, the name you give it is as important as naming your business or your child. You’re going to invest in the name and build it as a brand, and you’re going to have to live with it for a long time.
Although it looks mysterious, a domain name is like a phone number, everything in it means something. That’s why a web address is called a URL, a Universal Resource Locator. In the same way that phone numbers have country codes, area codes, 5-digit exchanges, main numbers, and extensions, a website’s url can be split into meaningful parts.
Website names usually start with “http://www”. It’s sort of like the country code. There are other prefixes: “https://www” (notice the s) tells the browser that the site is secure and information has been encrypted so you can feel safe when entering a credit card number or other private info. “ftp://” tells the browser that there are files, like programs, to be captured and saved on your computer. On most browsers, if you leave off http:// it will insert it for you. Try it. Type “amazon.com” into your web browser instead of the “http://www.amazon.com”. It should work.
When listing your website on promotional literature you can usually get rid of the http://www part and just list mybrand.com. This is a marketing issue not a technical issue. However, when you write a url IN AN EMAIL, it is VERY important that you include the prefix. A complete url with the prefix, when typed in an email, will be delivered with a clickable link in the text that will automatically take me there if I click on it. No typing or cut and paste necessary. If you leave off the http:// and just type mybrand.com or www.mybrand.com in an email, it is NOT clickable, and the likelihood that someone will go there diminishes significantly.
Our advice?
Opt for user friendly and build your brand. In print mybrand.com is best. In email, http://mybrand.com is best.
Dot what?
At the end of a domain name is a suffix of two or three letters called a “top level extension”. Dotcom and dotnet are the most popular for businesses. Dotgov is for government, dotedu is for schools, dotmil for the military, and dotorg used to be for non profit organisations. Some countries have their own suffix, such as dotca for Canada. A popular one is dottv, for the Pacific island of Tuvalo. Even though they are not located there, many broadcasters and communications companies use dottv.
Over the last few years some new suffixes have been introduced because most of the good dotcom names are gone. Dotme dotbiz and dotinfo are gaining popularity with businesses, and a lot of good names are still available.
Before long these suffixes may also be available:
- .name – individual and personal websites.
- .pro – professions such as law, medicine, accounting, etc.
- .aero – services and companies dealing with air travel.
- .coop – co-operative organizations.
- .museum – museums, archival institutions, and exhibitions.
- .xxx – sex and porn.
Where’s the meaty bit?
The meat of the address, sandwiched between the prefix and suffix, is your brand. Make it good. Make it short and easy to type. Make it memorable and easy to spell.
In the best of all possible worlds, your brick and mortar business name is short, catchy, and memorable, and you use the same name online. Like Normitmedia.com, Ford.com, Kraft.com, UPS.com, etc. But that rarely happens.
But if your name is Barnes & Noble, you’ve got a problem. Domain names can’t have ampersands (&). So they named their site barnesandnoble.com. Bad idea! First of all, it’s too long. Second, it’s spelled differently.
Eventually these businesses came to the realization that a short, memorable domain was better than using their proper name (well, almost). So they spent huge sums to buy bn.com from the person who bought it first.
In choosing your name, keep in mind domains may contain letters, numbers, periods, and hyphens, but no spaces, or other punctuation. You cannot begin or end with a hyphen. And domain names are not case sensitive.
Here are some more tips for picking your domain name:
- Watch out for potential confusion. Is samswine.com a wine store or a pork store?
- Try a contraction of your name. Network Solutions became Netsol.com.
- Another strategy is to use a name that contains an important keyword that people will use when searching. Wine.com, music.com, movies.com all come up near the top in web searches. If the best keywords are gone you can modify it. Try variations like winetopia, boozeorama, artique, or epills. Use a thesaurus but don’t outsmart yourself. Photosbyfred.com will be closer to the top of a search engine hit list for photos than will fotosbyfred.com.
- Likewise, beware of deliberate misspellings. If your name is aireport.com, count on losing business to airport.com. And count on getting sick of spelling it for people over the phone or at networking events.
- There is another way to go. A nickname! Bacall & Conniff is an accounting firm in the USA and their whimsical domain, beancounters.com is unforgettable.
- Another avenue is the fanciful name. Like Yahoo.com, or eBay.com. And just what is a Google? Great sites with memorable, nonsensical names.
Remember, the name you choose will be on all your letterheads, business cards, in your email address, and in newspaper articles written about you. Make it a good one.
Brainstorm it
How to pick the right name? Brainstorm it.
Brainstorming is a technique used by ad agencies to create brands and concepts. Get 4-10 people together in a room with a white board, a computer with an internet connection, and a nice hot drink. Pick a variety of people. Starched collars and nose rings go well together!
Explain the mission and give them this blog post. When everyone has read it, ask them to start throwing out ideas. Write them on a pad of paper and on the white board no matter how silly they might sound. A silly name might lead to a great name.
Keep going until there are no more names. Then go through the list and vote to keep or delete a name. Discuss each name’s strengths and weaknesses. Try to whittle the list down to the top 10. Then adjourn.
Go back to your desk and look them up on a search engine or our partner site (coming soon). If a name is not available, make note of the variations that are offered. Type up a list of the names that are available and circulate it among key people. Solicit feedback via email.
Pick the best and buy it. Now! And if it is not available then consider backordering it.
Protect yourself
You can buy MANY domain names and set them to point to one website. So buy your proper name like randolphwinecellars.com even if you plan to use wineorama.com. And protect your trademarks. Some companies will lock up mybrand.com, mybrand.biz, etc. This prevents confusion (but can get expensive). If you want to read about the President of the US, go to whitehouse.gov, not whitehouse.com. The latter is a porn site. Some people even anticipate monkey business from their competitors/enemies and reserve names like hatetesco.com
Anticipate misspellings. If your site is catwares.com, you might want to buy catwears.com.
Be careful that you do not buy a domain that could be an infringement of someone else’s trademark. That could lead to costly legal action and loss of the domain. Likewise, you should also beware of squatters. These are people who buy domains that infringe on you and offer to sell it to you for far more than face value, but less than the cost of litigation, so people usually pay the ransom rather than sue.
And never, never, never have your domain registered in someone else’s name! Don’t let your webmaster or ISP do it for you and list himself as the owner. If he goes out of business you have lost control of your brand. Or if she gets mad at you she can take your site down and you can’t move it elsewhere. If you ask someone to do it for you, make sure the listing shows you as the administrator, at your email address, and on your credit card. Renewal notices will be sent to the administrator’s address, and you do not want to fail to renew!
How do you register a domain? Simply get in touch with us and we will manage the whole process for you.
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