It is hard enough to be seen online, but a good domain name can make it a little easier. Below you will find the 6 main aspects that you have to keep in mind when choosing a domain name for your website.

1. – The Name

The name of the domain should always be the name of your company If possible and if that is taken find a domain that best describes what your site is all about. If you sell t-shirts try to make the domain describe just that. Do not let the customer/visitor guess what your site is all about.

2. – Extension

.com .net .us .biz .co.uk etc there are many options here but it is always best to go for the .com extension, with the one exception, if you for example only do business in England you might prefer .co.uk because this signals a local feeling to the visitor (do not forget to get the .com as well).

3. – Get it NOW

A domain is not expensive and since the number of businesses as well as private persons who seek to be seen on the internet increase by the second, you should make sure to get it before they do (I always use Godaddy.com – market leading and cheap).

4. – Length

Although abbreviations might be tempting keep in mind that it should be easy to remember. It might be easier to remember itsalwayssunnyincalifornia.com than iasic.com? If you’re not sure, my tip is to ask somebody that is NOT a web designer or super technical user which one of these is the easiest to remember?

5. – Tweaking of names

If you like to have for example company.com but that is already taken should you go for mycompany.com or yourcompany.com etc. Although it might be ok keep in mind that every time you mention your website you must mention it in full for example mycompany.com because if you write my company.com they might go to company.com instead and then you have not only lost a potential customer /visitor/subscriber/affiliate/ business partner etc you have also driven him/her to your competitors.

5. – Character Types

Even though there are many new domains that can use characters that is significant to certain countries I recommend you to only use a-z and numbers. If you choose for instance a German y, you just said no to every potential customer/visitor that do not know how to type that.