How to Choose an Apt Domain Name?

When you are starting a website or if you are called upon to give your expert advice in proposing a unique domain name, then you may often find yourself in a dilemma. You may get flooded with suggestions but you tend to get confused as to which of the names are actually suitable for the kind of domain you are endeavouring to start.

A domain name is the basic essence of any website. Choosing the right domain name is one of the biggest challenges that you will ever face while starting your website as the name should be creative, memorable and must convey the nature of the business, all at the same time. You cannot afford to be lenient while selecting the name of your domain as you want to establish your unique identity on the Internet.

Since you follow a set of pre-requisite rules while designing your website, you must also find out the factors that need to be considered while choosing your domain name. If you want to know how to choose an apt domain name, then you to follow these 10 golden rules that are inevitably the best ways to give a distinctive persona to your website:

1. Short-list Topmost Suitable Keywords

Before your domain name quest begins, you must prepare a list of around 8 to 10 keywords relating to the nature of your domain. If you are starting this website in partnership, then you can invite your partners for a brainstorming session, so that you have an extensive list of keywords that has been agreed upon by everyone.

For example, if your website is about fashion e-commerce, then you can list down possible keywords such as style, fashion, apparels, trends, rage, clothing, draping, etc. Once your list is ready, you can innovatively use some catchy words in the form of prefix or suffix and start playing with more and more names, till you short-list the most suitable names.

2. Go For A Unique Name

One of the biggest blunders you can do to shut down your website soon after its establishment is by deciding on a domain name that sounds similar to an already established one. Your website’s name should be unique and must not be confusing for your target audience. Avoid using domain names that are actually a plural, hyphenated or changed spelling form of any other website. There are perhaps, many such websites that have suffered a setback in terms of traffic and popularity due to inappropriate name selection.

3. Prefer Dot Com Domains

If you are serious about building your brand online and want to reach to a large group of masses worldwide, then you must pay utmost attention that your website address ends with .com. While using .net and .org will give you good results, but owning the .com site is critical for long term success of your online business as most people out there are habitual of visiting a website by typing in the website name along with .com. You cannot make the mistake of losing in such type-in traffic or your efforts for brand establishment and brand recognition will fail.

4. The Name Must Be Memorable

Your domain name must comprise of words that is capable of popping up in the mind instantly. Since your website’s first marketing tool is its name, make sure that people remember it and only catchy but easy website names find place in the SERPs (search engine results page). It won’t matter how elegantly and professionally you have designed and incorporated great content unless your website’s name has not marked a staunch place in the minds of the people.

5. Make It Easy To Type

Since most of the traffic comes from people who prefer to type the website address in full, you must consider the fact that the domain name must hence be easy to type as well. If your domain name seems to be composed of an unusual spelling, confusing or unmemorable words or is lengthy, then you will probably lose a substantial opportunity of augmenting your brand value. Abstain from using difficult to spell words or which are very uncommon as this can make typing the domain name a tedious task for your potential customers.

6. Keep The Name Short

When you keep long name for your website, then chances are high that they are forgetful and difficult to type too. So the first advantage of short domain is in terms of ease in remembering and typing. Moreover, they fit well in your business cards and letterheads while allowing more characters in the URL when your website name and details are mentioned in the SERPs.

7. The Name Must Be Suggestive

Your website name must be intuitive. On the first instance itself, anyone should be able to guess accurately what your domain is offering and which of their expectations will be fulfilled if they visit your site. That is why many websites whose name doesn’t suggest its nature of business find it difficult to build their brand and establish their domain as a household name.

8. Avoid Copyright Violation

You may face legal consequences if you embark on naming your website that clashes with the copyrights of any other company. In spite of creating a great website to initiate a highly innovative idea, your website can be shut down if you violate the copyrights of other company. Before finalizing on the name of your domain and buying it, ensure to visit copyright.gov and make a complete search.

9. Establish Value For Your Brand

Most of the websites trending today have established a value for their brand because they have focused on giving their website a distinguished identity with its name. A domain name is simply not a combination of words and this is why websites with names, loanforhome.com or cartorent.com may not be a hit among the people. In fact building brands via domain names such as lendingtree.com and rentalcars.com are the most convenient ways to attract quality traffic.

10. Avoid Using Hyphens Or Numbers

Since easy to type and remember is one of these golden rules, avoid using hyphens or numbers in your domain name as it would become a cumbersome job for your visitors to hook onto your business cards and type the right spelling. It would just irritate any potential customer so abstain from using such confusing symbols and numericals.

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