Article by Adam Whittom
Do you have the desire to secure your own location on the Internet? Are you trying to determine what to name your little piece of the web? This step in the planning process is a very critical step. It is right now that you are choosing how you and/or your products are known on the World Wide Web. After you have chosen your domain name and registered that name, you are on your way to setting up residence on the web. Here is a list of things to consider when trying to figure out the best address for your web place.
Use Business or Product Name in the Domain Name
Using your business or product name in the domain name helps to get the word out about your endeavors. It also makes finding your website easier for the general public and potential customers. If for example, your business is called Samples Hickory Mill and you are selling hickory wood products, you would want to try to use a domain name that includes specific information about your website in the name. Using sampleshickorymill.com would be a better choice than using something like hickorymill.com. By including the name of your business, you will set your website apart from all the other hickory product websites.
Short Domain Names
It is always a good idea to use the shortest domain name that will still allow a good description of what your website is about. A long drawn out web address can be hard for people to remember and the longer the name, the better chance that people will enter the address incorrectly.
Get.COM If You Can
What is the first website extension that you think of, when you are trying to figure out the web address of your favorite product? Most people automatically think of.COM. If you can find a good domain name that has not been taken with a.COM extension, buy it. If the.COM address for your chosen domain is not available, try another domain name. If you just cannot make the domain name work with.COM, the next choice in my opinion is to use.NET.
Brainstorm About Possible Names
If you want your own website, but just don’t know which way to go with it, brainstorm about your interests and possible topics that you may include on your site. Try to narrow down your possible domain names to topics that you have the most information and expertise about. The more that you know about a certain topic, the easier it will be to create content and keep the website going with fresh information.
Memorable, Easy To Spell and Not Easily Confused
A huge goal in choosing the proper domain name for you website, is to make sure that people will be able to find it and then recommend it to others. Your domain name needs to be a name that is memorable so that people can remember the name and recommend it to their friends and family. The name also needs to be easy to spell and not easily confused. If you have a website named youneedtocheckthisout.com, when people try to refer others by word of mouth, is the receiving party going to interpret it as uneed2checkthisout.com or possibly ukneedtoochequethisout.com? You want a domain name that is easy to convey through everyday language as well as in written form.
Use As Many Extensions As Possible
If you find that your domain name is available with other extensions along with.COM or.NET, buy them up. You can always redirect multiple domain names to your main site. If you are lucky enough to get a domain name like, freemoney.com you would potentially benefit from buying up freemoney.org, freemoney.net, freemoney.info and any other possibly combinations. By having all possible extensions, it will keep someone else from buying them up and getting mistaken traffic if someone uses the wrong extension when they type it into the address bar. Also, if your website become popular, your have kept others from buying up the name with another extension and possibly reaping financial gain from your brand name.
Avoid Using Trademarked Names
Avoid using trademarked names as your own domain names. The chances that you are able to find a domain name available that is an exact trademarked name is slim, but even incorporating a trademarked name in your own domain name is not a positive move to make. If you start a business and make a name for yourself, you wouldn’t want someone coming along and intentionally trying to benefit from your hard work by using your brand name to bring in visitors to their websites. If it is not a legal issue, it is definitely an ethical issue.
In summary, examine what you intend to use your website for and chose a domain name that caters to that purpose. Use as short a domain name as possible and try to use a name that will allow you to secure the.COM extension. Make the domain name easy to spell, remember and avoid possible trademark infringement.
To see what web projects that I am currently working on, point your browser to:http://www.adamwhittom.com/otherprojects.html
When I’m not working, I enjoy computers, hunting, fishing, major league baseball, and spending time with my wife. I am blessed with a wife that enjoys hunting and fishing, and isn’t afraid to jump right in and help clean the animals and fish that we get.I have several web projects that I have been working on lately. I’ve always wanted to do something with the internet andnow I have finally taken the plunge head first into making some hobby web sites.