The Art of Choosing Domain Names for Websites and Brands

Brand names and generally branding are complicated matters and getting a smart and efficient domain name for your brand is no less complicated. 

Picking a domain name is a separate skill that includes several steps and many important nuances. The key strategy involves finding valuable, likely memorable domain names, and getting them before others in your niche do. Domain names can be original and unique or super trivial and self-obvious, what matters is that your domain name works for you. 

You might not be aware but people purchase domain names daily. Some literally build their digital side hustles around buying and selling domain names. This fact means two things. Firstly, people hunt down really good domains and are ready to pay money for those. Secondly, a good domain name can be a game changer (for some online businesses or services). 

In this post, we look at several important aspects of choosing domain names for online businesses. 

How To Choose Quality Domain Names? 

There are several short recommendations for picking domain names that instantly make sense. Here they are: 

• Keep it short; 
• Avoid numbers and special symbols; 
• Make it easy to remember and type; 
• Use keywords related to your niche; 
• Check the domain history if it was purchased from a previous owner. 

When thinking of a good domain name, think of industries and niches, not smart words or abbreviations that you like. Research your niche and see what people get for their domains. Can you maybe borrow some ideas? 

One of the efficient ways to research is to check out keywords for your niche. Most probably, the most popular and frequent keywords are already taken and these domains cost huge money. No worries – look for something less obvious but still relevant. Researching keywords, you might also notice some interesting tendencies that can tell you what is going to trend in the future. And remember that competition is good, it means that the niche is in demand. Look at busy industries with heavy competition and how they handle their brand names and domains – for example, $1 deposit casinos in Canada that go from self-obvious names to something really fancy. 

If self-obvious relevant keywords are not an option in your case, another option is to be original and unique. Most brands want unique and original names, and it makes complete sense to also buy a domain featuring exactly the brand name (by checking domains you can actually accidentally realize that someone is already using the same brand name!). 

However, there are also certain smart moves you can make on this path, for example, removing the vowels from the brand name, using abbreviations, or altering the brand name in a way that it is still recognizable but the domain is more unique and also shorter (which is good for domain names!)

Using Domain Name Generators 

Domain name generators are awesome (and also free!) tools that can help you quickly pick several variations for your domain. 

(This fact doesn’t mean you are not supposed to do your homework and research the niche first. Domain name generators only generate letters and word combinations and sometimes show if the domain name is taken or free. They will not warn you if the word you accidentally picked resembles a swear word in Spanish.)

Knowing that there are over 360 million registered domains in the world makes some people think that all the good domains were already taken. And trying to figure something out on their own, especially manually, is tiring and time-consuming. 

Domain name generators, on the other hand, provide hundreds of clever combinations based on the keywords and letters you indicate. The only tiring thing here is to be able to eventually choose one of the hundreds of pretty awesome options. 

What to Consider About Domain Name Extensions 

Opting for a “.com” top-level domain extension is generally recommended since it is the most widely used domain extension. According to recent data, 37% of all domains use it since it is the most recognizable and simplest to remember. 

The majority of users will automatically enter “.com” when they visit a website. Acceptable substitutes for “.com” domains include “.org” or “.net,” both of which are also commonly utilized and are generally widely associated with what a domain should be like. 

Nonetheless, there are a couple of exceptions to the “.com” rule that should be considered:

• If your business is locally oriented, you should probably choose a local top-level domain. For example, if you’re located in the United States, use “.us”. 
• If you are getting a domain for community organizations, volunteer organizations, or charities, it makes sense to go for “.org”. 

However, if a version of your domain name with .com is available, you should still register it even if you are chiefly a local business. This is thinking long-term because you may expand your business in the future and can still benefit from the memorable and familiar domain.

You can also link “.com” to your local domain so that whenever someone types in a .com version of the address it redirects them to the local domain.