Domain Name Registration - Choosing Your Business Name

Getting a good domain name is important to the success of your online business. So before you take this big step and register your business name, let’s make sure you have all your ducks in a row. Here is what you should have done already:

- You have chosen one specific niche/topic for your business.

- You know the keywords you will be using in your business.

- You know some of the main products that you will offer.

- You have some ideas for possible names for your business.

Be sure you take your time when brainstorming a name for your business. Talk to people about your business name. Tell them you are starting an online business, and ask them for their suggestions. You will be surprised at the good feedback they will give you.

After you have some good ideas for your business name, you can search the register of existing online domain names to make sure your name isn’t already taken. Then you’ll register your new web business name! But before you do that, here are some things to take into consideration.

Choosing Your Domain Name

Your domain name, of course, is the name of your online business. It may be slightly different from your actual business name. But the main difference should simply be that your domain name will end in .com (dot com). Do not waste your time with any other kind of extension. Not .net, not .biz, not .org – USE DOT COM ONLY!

The .com extension is the mark of a serious business. You’re in business to make money. And you must make decisions based on profitability. So who do you think your customers will trust and buy products from: Someone who is serious about their business, or a newbie who doesn’t know the first thing about doing business on the net?

Your domain name (or business name, same thing) must exude confidence, reliability, strength, and trustworthiness. Establishing credibility should be one of your first priorities when choosing your name. Remember, first impressions are lasting impressions.

Choose words that are straight forward and easy to understand. Words that represent the kind of business you’re in. Your name should be memorable, easy to spell, and easy to remember.

Short domain names are better than long domain names.

Do not use numbers in your domain name. For example: If my domain name is www.sevenwonderlust.com, somebody might think, "Does that mean www.7wonderlust.com?" Or take the domain name www.7to1odds.com. Does that mean seven2oneodds? Or 721odds.com? The same goes for percent (%) and plus (+) and any other characters that might be easily confused.

Be careful about being too clever or using gimmicks in your name. Remember, you want your business name to establish trust and credibility—especially on the net!

Your best choice for your domain name would include one or two of your keywords. Use broad keywords that cover a lot of territory so you can expand your business into new directions that you may not be aware of right now.

You should check the popularity of the keywords you’re considering before making any final choices. Use WordTracker or the Overture Keyword Tool to find out how many searches have been done on each keyword. Hint: Use the keywords with the most searches.

Finally, make your domain name easily readable. Choose words that can be read and remembered easily. For example, which is better: www.bigwillysite.com OR www.BigWillySite.com ?

If your business name is already taken, you might want to use dashes between the words. I don’t recommend this especially, but more and more people are doing it now because there are less choices as more domain names are being registered than ever before. I recommend you keep brainstorming and add a new word, different word, or additional word to your domain name instead of using dashes.

Registering Your Domain With Your Host

I prefer and I recommend you choose your host first, and then register your domain name with your host. There are good reasons for this. First, it’s nice to keep all your information in one place, because it’s easy to forget URLs, dates of expiration, and passwords, among other things.

Second, why fill out a form more than once? If you register your domain name with one company and then host your site with a different company, you will end up typing the same information into the forms that you will be required to fill out where your site will be hosted.

Your domain name is your customer's first contact with your business. You must choose your name wisely. Take your time, know your keywords, use a .com extension, build your credibility with your business name, and try to be memorable.

Using Your Domain Name To Create More Business Products

The internet is a source of income within itself if you know what avenues to go down in order to generate the interest. Most companies nowadays have their own websites which offer information around the globe on what they offer. Whilst you may already be expanding due to this type of advertising would it not make sense to utilize this space to the best potential you can get from it? There are a few extra business opportunities that can bring in some extra cash for you and your business.

Examples of Business Opportunities Online

More often than not you will be using an Internet Service Provider to host your websites. It also means that the domain name that is used is not yours, it will be one assigned to you which promotes their name and not your. Normally if this service is provided free it also means that all advertising that is placed on your website is generating profits for your provider and not for you. This is just one of the many ways that you can use your domain name to attract business and generate income from various avenues globally.

There are companies who will provide you with the guidance to getting your website recognized and utilize your domain name to attract more business your way, making you stand out amongst the competition. They will research you and your website and find the pieces of information that stand out that will attract interest in your clients from amongst the rest of the competition that will get returned from online web searches.

Another way of ensuring added exposure of your business is by targeting your advertising spaces. In this way you will be linked with products and services that are in direct relation to what you are doing. This means that users who search for your type of product may be directed to you for that little something extra that they may require after their purchases. This is why your domain name is important in its clarity and simpleness.

Many companies may not realize that they need to register their domain names with the big search engine companies in order for them to get picked up in user searches. Search engine companies will list your domain name on their server and use specialized software to scan your site for word combinations that may be entered into a search engine. In this way you are ensured of being turned up in an online search, exposing you to literally millions of users the world over.

Email is a virtually free form of advertising. It is easy to gather peoples email addresses from those who wish to receive further information on your product. These can be from existing clients, online users who may subscribe to your email news letters; however it is important that when you use this sort of advertising you are not breaking the laws by encroaching on peoples privacy rights. This could get you and your company into some serious trouble and incur hefty penalties and even law suits against you.

Using these types of online opportunities means utilizing your web space to its full capacity. It is also a relatively cheap way of exposing your name to the international market without having to launch into expensive ad campaigns around the world. There are many opportunities for you to use your domain name as an extra business opportunity and all the research information is readily available online. Become a part of the ever growing popularity of online marketing and expand your business globally.

Creating A Great Domain Name For Your Business

You know how it is: you get a great business name idea and jump online to register a domain for it... only to find there is not just one name like yours, there are several names — or name derivatives — like yours, too.

Don’t fret. “Get creative,” says About.com’s entrepreneurial writer, Scott Allen. Another tip Allen suggests: Employ a thesaurus, too. Beware, though. Choose your name wisely. Chrysler learned that millions costly mistake when they unveiled their new Chevrolet Nova in the late 1970s—and no on in Mexico would buy the car—because “Nova” in Spanish means “no go.” Worse, still: Henry Ford, Jr. named the mid 1950s car with the vertical grill flop after his kid — Edsel.

With your new business, don’t get an Edsel or NoVa for it, as some websites that specialize in creating available domain names can craft this for you. The domain name search engine at www.makewords.com and other internet websites that brainstorm domain names can ensure ways to a great name for your site:

1. Play with names. Take the first few letters of a combination of names from your family members, street signs or consult a baby name book—like St from Steve, Or from Orson and Nel from Nellie. There, you’ve got STORONEL Or, something to that effect.

2. Research. What’s the Latin meaning of the name? How is it said in Greek? What’s the proper spelling in Hebrew? Remember, what may mean one definition in this country may take on a totally different — and sometimes insulting — meaning completely in another country or even said in another dialect.

3. And speaking of definitions... Hone in what your product is, does and stands out from the rest of the pack, and chose that one glowing, pivotal product gimmick as the domain name. Then you can register (and worry about) the company name, later. Think of Scott Golden’s rule of thumb: the Purple Cow Theory. Think about it: most cows are either brown, black or white, so if you saw a purple one in a field of all that brown, black or white cattle, you’d notice it, right? Cows are known not for milk alone.

4. Start reading everything. Bus signs, street signs, phone books, the table of elements, surnames.

5. Go Au Natural. Um, no, not naked, but back to nature. Orson Creek. Grey Seas Limited. Whatever works.

6. Get feedback — even if it’s on a name you hate. And this includes your own. Okay, so your own name’s hideous but you figured, what the heck, why not profit from it? Run it by your immediate family, anyway and see what they think, all the same. And, by the same token...

7. If you’re going to use their names — ASK! ‘Nuff said on that. And even if they still say no on the name use—regardless of the double-digit percentages they get from the royalties—move on.

8. Register your ideas and trademarks — if any — with the U.S. Copyright Office. You may also want to look into your state’s registered offices for any name trademarks, copyrights or patents your idea may or may not be fringing upon. Also, register with your state as names that you will be doing business as, or known as a DBA, so that the IRS and other financial institutions can keep track with, for and yes, on you. For instance: If you have a Freddie-Eddie, a kid’s only night-light as your product, you may register the website name as your name spelled backwards—like NEVELE for ELEVEN or NEVAEH for HEAVEN—the do business in your given name, SBA whatever you have it spelled as, and register Fred-Ed.com, or something like that.

9. Register a Domain Name. Consider registering .net and .info as domain names, too besides .com. Oh, sure, it’s not as glamorous as is a .com name—but it’s not as crowded and jockeying for web traffic space and branding recognition, either. And, if you’re looking to maximize your search engine places, .net and .info may be the way to go, since not many name brands have those tags to go by, either.

10. Get an EIN with the IRS. That’s an Employee Identification Number registered with the Internal Revenue Service. If you’re gun-shy in using your Social Security Number, they can assign an EIN to you. This way, you can use this for any and all business transactions you’ll be making with your new business.

11. Play with Colors, Shapes and Numbers. So, you’re still determined to get a .com with your name in it? That’s okay. More and more websites today have alphanumeric combinations to their domain names. Like the song by the Brothers Johnson called “Strawberry Letter #22”, some websites have letters and numbers working for them, too. As for a logo, like with a domain name, if you’re going to go on the international scale, make sure that logo is a universally accepted sign. Choose a light, bright color for your logo. A square with a smiley face may work if that smiley face is a rosy pink in most countries. If that “Have a Nice Day!” smiley face is square and yellow, though, you may have to take issue with those who own that kid called Squarepants.

Choosing A Domain Name For My Business

The domain name for your business is your online identity. You should be very careful about choosing a domain name that is memorable, scores quite well with search engine listings, has a trust factor attached to it, and commands a brand value. A domain name is quite important for your business correspondences and emails. A long one can cause problems in communication, especially if the domain name seems complex. Here are some tips in choosing a well-meaning domain name that captures the essence of your brand image or business:

1. Keyword oriented or a unique domain name? If your website is going to have a crucial role to play in your business, then it is important to have an adequately researched keyword incorporated within the brand name. Use the most searched-for term in search engine queries, within your domain name. Prior to launching your online business, you should do some research through website tools to find out which keywords register the most number of traffic during a month. For example, if you want to make a website based on advising people, you will find that the keyword help is normally typed in the search engine query window a lot more frequently than the word aid. If your domain name includes targeted keywords, than you will get higher rankings in the search engines like Google and Yahoo. You should bear in mind that, apart from having the targeted keyword in your domain name, you should also have keywords in other parts of your site as well.

2. Use a company name only if you are famous: That is right. If your company name overwhelms the basic product name, then by all means go for the company name as your domain name. For example, people normally use the term Xerox rather than photocopy and if you are Xerox, then you should go for Xerox as a domain name because of the sheer popularity of the brand name. This is usually not the case, so using a keyword-rich domain name is a better move for most people. To be on the right side of balancing your business well, you should buy a set of two domain names, one that represents your business/brand name, and another that represents keywords or key phrases.

3. Keep your domain name short: The shorter your domain name, the more memorable it is. If your domain name has an every-day lingo, the better it is! More often than not, you may find that a simple two-word domain name is already taken. The alternative in this case, is to put a hyphen (-) to your targeted keyword and then add the other word. SEO experts are of the belief that hyphenating two or more words makes a long domain name more search engine friendly. The flip side is that people do not tend to write words with hyphens naturally, and there is a chance that if someone has recommended your site to a friend, the friend may find himself going to a competitor’s site. So one has to understand and undergo a lot of study while choosing a domain name. After all, it is one prominent thing that can dictate the flow of your business. Also, you should avoid putting numbers like 4 instead of for in your domain name. It will only lead to confusion.

4. Dot.com only: If you intend to have a website for commercial or business reasons, then by all means go for a website which ends in extension .com. The domain name companies will market other options like .org, .us, .net, etc. However, by all means try stick to .com for better mass appeal.

5. Register similar domain names: If you believe that in the future you are going to have a huge amount of people visiting your website through word-of-mouth advertising, then you should consider registering similar domain names that direct to your main URL (e.g. www.datinginformation.com and www.datinginfo.com). There are cyber-squatters who register domain names in the hope that they will be selling them for a profit to someone who really needs that domain name. Before they do this, you should register the domain names if you think that such a possibility can occur.

6. Be patient: You should not choose a domain name in minutes merely just to get it done and over with. A hasty decision may cost you a lot. It is better to invest time in research and arrive at the right kind of domain name. You should also discuss the comprehensibility and usage of the domain name with friends, neighbors and well wishers to find how simple and commonplace it really is.

Choosing The Right Domain Name For Your Business

When you're ready to take your business on the Internet it's imperative that you find the domain name that's perfect for your business. Sometimes this is done with relative ease, and at other times it can be quite difficult to find just the right name for your business. We're just going to go over a few different ideas that you can be keeping in your mind while you're doing your domain search.

The first thing that you should do is choose the registrar that you think that you're going to be using for your domain name registration. I've used many different domain name registrars including http://goDaddy.com, which I tend to think is the easiest to use. Making your domain search by making yourself a less a commonly used words in your business. For example, if you have an electrical supply business thank you should have words in your last such as electrical, supply, electrician, power, and so on. You'll then went to a use these words as a basis to find a domain name that's perfect for your business.

If you have a business that has a company name or a corporate name then you may just want to register your business with the business name and a dot com extention. This tends to work well on business cards and in other forms of off-line advertising. If you're planning on trying to get some traffic from the search engines you may want to go a little bit more specific with your keywords that relate to your business. You can then build your web site around these particular keywords and order to drive some free search engine traffic to your site.

There are also many different extensions that are available such as dog com, dot net, dot org and many others. The most common, and the one that you really should try to go for first, is a dot com of course. It's almost understood that when you tell someone a web site address that is going to end in dot com. If you buy a dot net or a dot org web site address you'll tend to find yourself explaining the fact that it's not a dot com more often than he probably would like to do so.

The plan on spending some time and really digging for the perfect domain name for your business. There are tens of thousands of domain names registered every day and it's getting harder and harder to find one that isn't already taken. If you keep running into this wall, don't get discouraged, there are still many, many domain names available better suited for any business. Last, but not least make sure that you use your imagination. If you find yourself stuck, asked a friend for some suggestions. Choosing a domain name is important for the future of your business, so take your time and find the best one that you can.

How To Choose A Domain Name For Your Business

A website’s domain name (also know as a website address or URL) is an important consideration when developing your online presence. Choosing an appropriate domain name is the first step in the process of building online credibility. Remember to choose carefully because this online address may be where your business resides for the rest of its operating life. Now, some important tips to consider before choosing your domain name:

Choosing Your Domain Extension

A domain extension or top level domain is simply the suffix of your website address: (.com, .net, .org, .ca, etc.) Most Internet users are familiar with the “.com” extension, and will generally use this extension by default when typing an address into their browser. Choosing a “.com” extension should be your fist choice in case your potential customers forget that your address is “www.mybusiness.NET”, and visit your competitor at “www.mybusiness.COM” by mistake. Choosing the “.com” extension gives your website the most credibility in the eyes of your customers.

If your business only caters to the local community, then it makes sense to get a country specific domain name, such as the “.ca” extension. A country specific domain benefits you in two ways: both your customers and search engines such as Google will know that your website is registered to a Canadian and operates in Canada. Potential customers will feel more comfortable knowing that they are dealing with a Canadian company, and not a U.S. based business pretending to be a Canadian company. Also, search engines will give your website higher placement in the search results when a user is performing a Canadian specific search.

I personally recommend that my clients, if possible, register both the “.com” AND “.ca” extension. This way, your Canadian based website will benefit from using the “.ca” extension, while at the same time ensuring that they reach your website if they accidentally type the “.com” extension into their browser.

Using Your Business Name

The first choice for any domain name would be your business’ name. This ensures that your customers will remember your website’s address. You can’t expect your potential customers to remember a phrase that just relates to your business.

Choosing Choice Keywords

Including specific keywords in your website’s address will help your rankings in popular search engines such as Google or Yahoo. It is best to choose a keyword that you think your potential customers will use to search for your business. A search engine optimization (SEO) professional such as Cost Effective Design can assist you in choosing your keyword(s). These type of domain names are used in instances where the client does not want to use the business name because it is either already registered by another company, or the company name is simply too long. Any company that is serious about generating traffic through search engines should acquire a domain name with a keyword in addition to your business name.

Don’t Confuse Your Customers

If possible, try not to use domain names that include: “2” for “To” or “4” for “For” or “u” for “You”. These may make your domain look “cool” or “hip”, but in reality they are not very practical. These domain names create a problem when directing your clients to your website verbally or over the phone. For example, if you owned http://www.UsedCars4U.com, every time you verbally directed someone to your website, you would have to specify that the URL uses the actual number 4, and letter U.

To Use, Or Not to Use Hyphens

Given that more and more businesses are registering domain names every day, getting the website address you want is becoming increasingly difficult. One or two word domain names are usually already registered, forcing new registrants to choose URLs containing three or four words. To some people, these URLs can look like a big mess of words. Using hyphens in between the words can make them visually more appealing. For example, “www.used-cars-for-you.com, looks better than “www.usedcarsforyou.com. The jury is still out on hyphenated domain names. The advantages are that they look better and search engines can easily distinguish the separate keywords for better search placements, but the disadvantages are that they are difficult to verbally communicate and type.

The best solution would be to register both the hyphenated, and the un-hyphenated version of the domain name to ensure that there is no confusion.

Domain Name Length

Even though you are allowed to use 67 characters for a domain name, the general rule of thumb is: shorter is better. Although, in some instances, the website address may be more memorable if it is more descriptive. For example a domain consisting of initials only, such as “www.waa.com”, may not create a lasting impression compared to the domain name “www.windsorautoassociation.com”. Therefore, it is best to choose a name that, while short, contains enough description for your customers to easily remember.

Buying an Existing Domain Name

Maybe the domain name you really want is already registered, either by a legitimate company, or by a “domain squatter” who merely registered the name to sell for a profit at a later date. You can make an offer for these types of domains, although they make cost several hundred, or even thousands of dollars. There are advantages to purchasing an existing domain name. In addition to getting the domain you want, it may also rank highly in the search engines for certain keywords and / or generate topic specific traffic that you will benefit your business.

Business Domain Name Success - Choosing A Domain Name

Choosing a business domain name can be one of the most important decisions you make. You can even sell domain names if you buy them as an investment.

Domain names are important to all businesses. Why? It’s as important to any e-commerce business as it is to a retail business. Your name means a lot, and you want something to stick when people hear it. If your domain name is concise, you are more likely to sell it for more, and profit more than long ones.

There are more ways to earn more with the sale of domain names, doesn’t that make you happy? Many people have made fortunes with the sale of domain names, and you can too! Many people like you and me have bought popular domain names as soon as the original owner forgets to renew it. If you buy a domain name, and the owner wants it back, you can ask for whatever price you want! You can easily make money if you’re smart about your domain buying.

There are tons of domain investors who check the availability of domain names. Many can sell these domain names and even lease the domain names so they can earn extra money. If you ever tried to find that perfect domain name for your business then you know it can be expensive if someone else already owns it for an investment.

You can also buy domain names that are generic, then sell the domain name to people in the industry involved with that name. For example, you can buy http://www.hamburger.com, and sell it to http://www.McDonalds.com. Why is that? Because McDonalds might want to take the traffic from http://hamburger.com, and use it to their advantage! Of course something like that example is long gone, but there are always other opportunities on a smaller scale. Just like any other business, making money in this is going to take practice, trial, and error. Nothing is easy, so if you make mistakes or lose money in the beginning, don’t give up!