7 Tips to Finding a Great Domain Name

With the web becoming more and more important as a media to communicate to your customers/clients finding a great domain name is becoming more critical. A great domain name will pay you huge dividends in the future. Before you choose yours read my 7 top tips listed below.

Tip 1- Keep It Short : As far as possible keep it short. Long domain names are more difficult for the user to key in. In addition email addresses that utilise the domain name are also more difficult to spell and key in.

Tip 2 - Try To Use The Keyword: If you are hoping to do well in the search engines like Google, then try and get your top keyword in the name. So for example if you are a plumber and your business name is NJH, then a good one would be NJHplumbing.com. Perhaps you own a rental property in Cornwall then another example that you might consider would be HolidayCornwall.com. This will give you a big advantage in Google as a lot of importance is placed on the domain name.

Tip 3- Do Not Use Difficult To Spell Words : This is a real killer if you choose a domain name that is difficult to spell a lot of people will just give up, for example if you are a heating engineer I personally would not use the word engineer in the domain name as people may struggle with that, so before you buy think "would everyone be able to spell this word".

Tip 4- Should You Use A Hyphen : For example if cornwallholiday.com is not available should you try for cornwall-holiday.com. There are pros and cons to this point. My advice is yes; if the name without the hyphen is not available then go for the one with the hyphen. You then get what you want.

Tip 5- Character Types, What's Allowed : Domain names can only be made up of letters, numbers and dashes. Spaces and symbols are not allowed. In addition domain names cannot be case sensitive.

Tip 6- Use a Domain Name Suggestion Tool: You can bet your life that the domain name you want has been taken. If that is the case use a "domain name suggestion tool" - key this into Google and lots will appear. I personally like this one http://gi.net/domain.php?action=domain_suggest (I only use this for suggestions I do not buy through them although I am sure they are very good).

Tip 7- Buy the Domain in Your Name: When you buy a domain name be sure to buy it in the entities name that you want to own it, for example it may be in your name or your companies name. A friend of mine paid his web designer to buy the domain name, the web designer purchased it in his own name, a year later they have fallen out and his x web designer legally owns the domain name.

In these days we need to be more creative in our advertising, having a website is becoming a necessity rather than a luxury. It should form part of our advertising and marketing push to obtain more work. I hope the tips listed above help you in finding a great domain name.