How to choose the best domain name for your web site

Choosing a domain name is not very different from choosing a name for your new born baby.  You consider things like the gender of the baby. If it’s a boy you look amongst boy names and if it’s a girl you look amongst girl names. The easy thing about baby names is that it doesn’t matter that someone had already given that name to their baby. It’s not like that with domain names; a domain name must be unique and no one must be using that domain name, not anywhere in the world.

The following fimportant factors must be considered in choosing a domain name:

1.       Branding-Your domain name must preferably brand well with your business name.  If your business trades as Brown Motors, you should consider domain names like brownmotors.com, brownmotors.co.zw, brownmotors.net, etc.You may be asking what if my domain name has already been taken? You have 2 options here:

a.       Find out who registered the domain name you want and contact them to negotiate that you can repurchase the domain name from them, normally at a higher price of course.

b.      Tweak you domain name to make it different. For example if tanaka.co.zw was registered by someone else, you could make yours tanakaonline.co.zw or tanakabricks.co.zw if your company sold bricks.

 

2.       Easy to remember or spell out- A domain name must be easy to remember and also easy to spell. If your domain name is difficult to spell you are likely to lose web visitors as they misspell the domain name and are redirected to some other web site. So you must avoid commonly misspelt words. Such words like accommodation,wheather and others commonly confused because of their ambiguity e.g. legalise in British English and legalize in American English. The Americans will type your domain name with a “z” whilst the british use an “s”.

 

3.       Avoid hyphens-Yes this is important. Avoid domain names with some hyphens “-“  like       afri-com.net. People have a tendency to forget the “-“. Going to www.afri-com.net will take you to a different location whilst www.africom.net will take you elsewhere. However sometimes businesses have no choice if the domain name has already been taken, they either resort to putting the hyphen or having to negotiate to buy the registered domain name from its owner which usually will be quite expensive.  You could end up buying a domain name you could have registered at $15.00  per anumn for $2500.00

 

4.       Local or International-This is where I have found the greatest confusion amongst people.  I have often come across people asking me what domain extension is best for us? .com, .net, .org, .biz, .co.zw or what?

a.       A country specific domain like example.co.zw is referred to as a local domain. This domain brands your business as Zimbabwean and is most likely to be highly trusted amongst locals.

b.      International domains (.com, .net, .biz, .org, etc)  brands your business as international

Thus your choice of a local or international domain should be based on whether your major online audience is local or international. If your audience is both local and international, then go international.

A note about domain names

Domain names usually run out very quickly! It’s now very hard to find a good .com domain and very soon good .co.zw domains will become harder to find, especially with the introduction of online domain registration facilities like name.co.zw which save people time going to ZISPA offices.

Good luck in your domain search.