Choosing a domain name for business? This post walks you through the steps of finding a premium domain name that signifies what your business is about. This post may contain affiliate links.
Choosing a Domain Name for Business
The modern day domain name needs to perform several jobs for you. First it needs to catch people’s attention, it also needs to let people who are not familiar with your business know what it’s about. Next your domain name should help you build trust, something top tier premium domain names are good at. The domain name you choose should also lend itself to marketing your business. We’ll look at what attributes a good domain name has and how to identify them by following seven easy steps.
Step 1: Choose The Right Extension
A domain name extension is an important part of the domain name and you’ll want the domain extension to fit the purpose your using it for. Because your choosing a domain name for business it’s important that your domain name uses the .com extension.
Although there are other possibilities you could use namely country code extensions. Two country code extensions that have become more popular are .io and .ai but generally you’ll want to stay with the .com extension.
Why? The .com domain name extension was created specifically for the purpose of online commerce and business in general. It is well established and trusted, qualities you’ll want when setting up a website for your business whether it be online or brick and mortar.
Step 2: Avoid Misspelled Domains
The domain name you purchase needs to receive the traffic that was meant for it. Misspelled domains loose traffic to correctly spelled domain names. For example realtraffic.co looses traffic to realtraffic.com because people are use to typing .com and don’t recognize .co so they complete it by putting an “m” at the end of the domain extension. In this example the traffic meant to go to realtraffic.co actually went to realtraffic.com instead.
Along the same lines a typo domain name like realtrafic.com gets typed in buy an end user as realtraffic.com because they know how to properly spell the word traffic and so they complete the word as it was meant to be spelled.
Along this line and also worth mentioning are domain names with dashes between words that can fail the radio test in step 3. For example real-traffic.com might be relayed to someone but by the time they go to type it in they forget the dash so they type in realtraffic.com instead.
Another note about misspelled and typo traffic is that it quickly looses trust in the eyes of the end user. For these reasons it’s a good idea to avoid these types of domain names.
Step 3: Pass The Radio Test
The domain name should lend itself to marketing and it should past the radio test. If a radio station were to advertise your domain name how likely would a listener be able to memorize it until they could get to the internet to look it up?
Out of four domain names two pass the radio test can you pick them out? 1. diamonds.com, 2. buydiamonds.com, 3. pearlsndiamondsltd.com, 4. diamonds-by-ati.co. Number 1 and 2 easily pass the radio test while number 3 and 4 do not.
Step 4: Find a Domain That Builds Trust
Choosing a domain name that builds trust is an important factor and is closely tied to passing the radio test (step 3). Trusted domain names include the following attributes: the more simplified the domain name, the easier the domain is to spell, a correctly spelled domain, a domain name that ends in .com, a domain name that passes the radio test. These are important attributes of a domain name that builds trust.
Step 5: Add a Geographic Element (Optional)
If your in business in a specific town and your sure that your not going to open more stores in another town then a geographic or geodomain could be of interest to you. What is a geo domain? Tires.com is a top tiered premium domain name. BostonTires.com is a geodomain (where an element of the domain name is geographical in nature, for example Boston). Abbreviations also count as geodomain elements. Examples include: nyctires.com or latires.com.
Step 6: Buy Your Domain Name Before Starting Your New Business
If your incorporating a new business it’s imperative to acquire the domain name before you incorporate your business. Why? Most people look for a business name that is not taken. They find one they like and incorporate the business.
After the business is setup they then look for a domain name only to find that the name they’ve chosen for the business is not available as a domain name without adding or subtracting words. As an example let’s say the name of the newly incorporated business is “Bob’s Tire Center”.
If you go to a domain name registrar and search for bobstirecenter.com you’ll find that it’s taken. So what happens next? A domain name gets purchased that does not match the exact words the business has in it. For example: bobs-tire-center.com (which breaks the rule in Step 2), bobstirecenterllc.com (which breaks the rule of Step 3 also if the business structure changes to corp, scorp or another legal structure the domain name would no longer be a fit) or bobstirecenterboston.com (which also breaks the rule of Step 3).
Step 7: Where To Search For Your Domain
The first logical step to find your domain name is to search a domain name registrar, see our guide how to check if a domain name is available. If the domain name you want is not available to buy through a domain name registrar then you can check for premium domain names in the aftermarket.
Many different sites have premium domain names for sale like: BuyDomains, Godaddy, Sedo, SpaceDotPro and others. You also might check Empire Flippers and Flippa. Both sell online businesses and may also have premium domain names for sale without a website.
Summary
Choosing a domain name for business requires some planning and research. Your domain name is like a foundation. Domain names that pass the most important steps above: a domain that’s easy to spell, a domain name that’s correctly spelled, a domain name with a .com extension, a domain name that passes the radio test, a domain name that has inherent trust all combine to make a solid foundation to build your website and business on. Investing in a premium domain name is an important first step to a successful business.