What is an effective domain name? There is no right answer. What is good for one person may not be right for another. These suggestions may however be useful. Certainly we encourage you to think carefully about the way the internet operates and to consider registering linked sets of domain names for current and future use. Even more important, we encourage you to act now while there are still millions of excellent domain names available for registration.
Webnames tend to be short and snappy and an inappropriate or long name could lose you thousands of potential visitors to your site. You may find that in addition to a name which reflects your registered business name (Beales.ltd.uk) you also need a range of names that are specifically designed make life easy for your customers or to bring in new business online through internet search engines, directories and listings.
Try to select a name that is easy for people to use. You don't want to lose contacts because people have difficulty typing, spelling or speaking your domain name.
You want people to remember your domain name so that they can easily return to your website or recommend it to other people. A single word is ideal if they associate that word with you (and you can find one that has not already been registered). Attention grabbing names which are different and stand out from the crowds also work. Try using colour, movement, physical attributes or strange combinations of words to make your name memorable
People will often try to guess what your domain name is. Make it easy for them. If there are several ways they might guess your name, register all of them. Consider registering the .com version of your name and also say, the .co.uk and .org.uk versions, as well as those key countries in which you operate (if you are eligible to do this) Register your name in full, by initials and any other way by which you are commonly known. This is good customer care as well as clever marketing. The price of a few additional names is probably nothing compared to the extra business they are likely to generate.
You have only a few characters to get over who you are and why people might want to visit your website. Try to project an appropriate image as this will influence the type and number of visitors to your website.
If you want to be seen as trading in the global marketplace consider using a .com address. If you want to be associated with a specific country then flag that up by using, for example, a .uk suffix. Do you want to be seen as a traditional or modern company, perhaps using the full title of your company (InfiniteInnovations.co.uk) or a short snappy brand name (Headpoint.com)? Do you want to be seen as commercial or not-for-profit focussed (FantasticClothes.com or ChrisD.org)?
Many people use search engines listings to find the type of webpages they want. When they get long listings they tend to look only at those at the top of it. To attract new business think about the words people are likely to use when making a search engine inquiries and then register additional domain names incorporating these words. The reason for this is that many search engines give a higher weighting to a word when it is contained in a domain name than when only found in the text.
If you want to sell lighting worldwide you will find a name like modernlighting.co.uk will bring you in many more new customers than a name like YourName.ltd.uk (though you may find it valuable to register both types of name). In addition, think about the verbs that people are likely to use in intuitive search queries, for example "I want companies selling modern lighting". If you have the three words "sell", "modern" and "lighting" in your domain name address it may help you get a higher ranking than if you just have charlies-lights.co.uk as your domain name. If you want to be even more sophisticated you should register two additional names, one which picks up the people who say "I want to buy modern lighting" and another that tries to attract people who ask 'who sells modern lighting'?
Consider names that will be suitable for the future. Your company may currently sell through wholesalers but might it sell direct to the public through the Internet in the future? If yes, register appropriate domain names. You might also buy domain names for products, brands and services planned for in the future even though they are not yet on the market. The names will be available when you need them and prevent their registration by potential competitors.
Provided you keep up the necessary re-registration, the names will be yours for as long as you want them. If you don't buy the names now you may well curse yourself if they are gone when you come to need them. You will curse even louder if they have gone to a competitor.
Brand names and trademarked words tend to make excellent domain names. This is good customer care and lets you have separate websites for key products or to forward people your main website or email service. Importantly, buying all variants of your brand name (singular/plurals, with and without hyphens, different organisational and country codes) stops hostile third parties from registering them and potentially drawing visitors away from your site.
Remember that many words are spelt differently in 'Classic English' and 'American English'. If words like colour/color, programme/program are used consider buying two sets of domain names, one incorporating each spellings. Similarly think about the way you describe your services. In the United Kingdom you may be an estate agent selling flats but if you want to attract Americans to your site you may want an additional domain name incorporating the term real estate and apartments. Other examples include shop/store, sweets/candy, petrol/gasoline, railway/railroad, autumn/fall.
If you want to trade globally you need to think about the needs of potential customers who are not fluent in the language of your website. Try to avoid specialist words and those that are difficult to spell. Consider registering foreign language words in domain names if you want to conquer markets in other countries. If you combine this with a website in that language it is likely to substantially increase your sales. While English is currently the main language of the internet this is expected to change soon.
If the words you use are easily mis-spelt or mis-heard it is useful to register domain names with both spellings. If someone makes a mistake they can unobtrusively be redirected to the correct website and without any loss of face. Just one additional customer could easily offset the cost of purchasing the additional name.
If people might get confused whether words in your domain name are in the singular or plural, we recommend you register both variants. We have both Headpoint.com and Headpoints.com.
Most single words in the English language have already been registered as a .com address and many have gone as .co.uk. Make up new words (Skipi.com), combine several words (MarketingGenius.co.uk) or chose a well known phrases (BreakTheRules.co.uk).
You can't have spaces between words but you can use hyphens to separate words. On the whole it appears better to avoid hyphens. Lots of respectable people use them but they can be irritating to type and easily forgotten when people verbally recommend good websites. Generally we would advise you to register domain names with and without hyphens as a way of preventing someone else from obtaining them and potentially drawing visitors away from your website.
When choosing a country code think carefully whether you want to be seen as trading internationally. If you do this at the current time or might in the future consider choosing the .com suffix as this is the one that is most commonly known and the one that people may first guess if they can't remember your full address. . If you want to be associated with a specific country consider using a country code, e.g. .uk (United Kingdom) or .au (Australia). A possible disadvantage of a .com suffix is that people may trust you less if they don't immediately know where your organisation is located or they make an inappropriate assumption you are an American company when this is not the case (as most .com addresses are registered in America). A major advantage of a .com address is that you immediately signal you are trading globally. You may also find it easier to attract customers if you have an address which gives the impression of your being a large, well established organisation marketing globally when you are in fact a tiny business operating out of a back room.
If you are choosing a personal name, thinking whether you want it for professional and/social use? Do you want to use a nickname you are known by now or a name that will be suitable for the rest of your life? (You may be a student or a sales representative today but do you want a name that will be suitable if one day you set up your own company?) Do you want to reveal your gender in your choice of name (JaneSmith or JSmith)? Given that many people in the world may have a similar personal name, do you want to add initials or some other indicator to distinguish you from all the other people with the same name (JaneSmith.com or JaneASmithLondon.co.uk)? Alternatively, do you want to impress people by having a stunningly simple or impressive domain name like Skipi.com , Spikey.co.uk or GorgeousWoman.co.uk.
There may be words and phrases that, if used by a hostile third party, could damage you. You don't want to lose potential good business because someone else has registered a name that is easier to remember or is more cleverly designed to get high ratings on Internet search engine inquiries. You should also consider registering names that would harm you if belonging to other people. You must however be very careful not to infringe the legal rights of others people. (Please consult a lawyer for specific advice).
There are many legal issues which you should consider when buying a domain name. You must be careful not to infringe trademarks and copyrighted material. You must also be careful not to pretend to be another company by registering their name and illegally passing yourself off as them. (This warning is not fully inclusive of all possible legal issues and you should consult a lawyer for specialist advice.)
One final word of advice. Many thousands of new domain names are being registered every day and it is anticipated that one hundred million more will be registered in the next two years alone. There is consequently a real danger that having identified a name you like today it will be gone tomorrow, or even later today!