The Name

So you’re all ready to start brainstorming to pick the appropriate name for your domain. Have you decided on what the name of your website will be? Do you have a specific name for the product or service that you are offering? These are probably questions that you may want to answer before actually picking your domain name. I see many who work this whole process backwards. For example, someone will spend hours working up a name for their domain, even before they have their product developed. They come up with a domain name, and now they are developing a name for their product based on the name of their domain.

This may work for some, but I think it’s a bit more effective if you put more thought into the name of your product rather than the domain name. Once you have your product name picked out, you’ll be able to place that product into the appropriate niche category. Now you’ll have a little bit more to work with when picking the actual name of your site. Does the name of your domain have to match your product? It doesn’t have to, but I suggest that the name you choose is pretty close or highly relavant to what your trying to market. Obviously you don’t want to confuse everyone with a domain name that includes the word “dogs” when you’re actually marketing a product for “cats”.

Remember to be careful when choosing the names however. The primary concern here is that you don’t create a website with a brand name or a name that is trademarked. So many will end up choosing a good sounding name, spend tons of time developing their website, only to find out that their name is trademarked and is in potential danger of being taken away. There can be a lot of legal situations that arise, but that all depends on the names that are involved.

Long or Short?

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to determine which option is better here. The shorter your domain name the better. It’s fantastic if you can narrow your domain name down to one or two words. If you want a one word domain it’s going to cost you, but there are plenty of two word domains that you can obtain for next to nothing.

The question will often arise weather or not you should use a the words like “the” or “my” in the title of your domain. I choose not to use these words, simply because I never seem to find the appropriate time or reason to use them. It’s not necessarily a bad choice, becuase depending on your product or service, it could work out amazing. Ever hear of MySpace? So when it comes down to it, if you find that it’s necessary to use these type of words, go for it! Just remember that you’ll want to attach this word to your product name as well. Otherwise you could potentially be advertising two different things.

Add a little dash?

To hyphen or not to hyphen, that is the question. I’ve never chosen to use hyphens in my domain names. Does this mean it should never be done? Absolutely not. I think that if you have two words that really fit your product, and the original non hyphenated two word name is taken, it’s not a bad choice to take the hyphenated option if it’s available. The only problem is that so many people will hear a name and completely forget the hyphen. And it doesn’t sound as nice to advertise, when you have something like “used cars” for example. It’s much nicer to say “used cars” dot whatever, rather than “used dash cars” dot whatever.

Should I .com, or .net, or .org, .info, or .us, or ….oh my.

This can really be a hard choice for some people. Others, it’s an instant hands down decision to choose the .com over anything else. You have to admit that .com is much easier to remember, simply because it is the standard. I’m one that likes to explore and try all sorts of options that are available. I must say, I’ve had just as much success with a .info or .net as I’ve had with a .com domain. Again, this will all come down to personal preference. You’ll be able to market each of these sites the same way. Just remember to make your domain name look good, and promote it’s full name. If you’re trying to keep cost down, go with .info site if it’s appropriate.

Once you take all the above things into consideration, you’ll be picking incredible domain names like you’ve been doing it for years. Just use a little bit of common sense. Don’t create sentances in your domain name, like “iwenttotheparkyesterday” dot whatever. “dayinthepark” dot whatever sounds a whole lot better for something like that. Remember you’re trying to stay professional most of the time while marketing your message out to others. With all that said, happy domain name hunting!