A domain name can make or break a website and choosing an effective domain name is not something that should be taken lightly.
A good domain name is an important part to developing a great website.
Good domain names incorporate the following attributes:
- Short
- Memorable, or Catchy
- Different to any immediate competitors
- Easy to spell
Let’s drill down on these principals and give you some examples.
Short:
Having a short domain name is preferable, but not all ways practical. As an example www.egg.com is a short domain name, but causes confusion as to what the website will be if the domain is seen with no other form of marketing.
The extreme reversal of this is: http://thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlonglast.com/
This is a ridiculously long domain name, however, it does describe (in some way) what the website will be about. This domains downfall (as with many long domains) is trying to write this in the address bar will probably lead to typos and the website not being found.
Memorable/Catchy:
Having a domain name that is memorable or catchy will certainly help. It is easy to remember and will be more likely to be dropped into conversation. Often these types of domain names will not give the user any idea of what the website is about. A few examples of memorable names are probably ones that you have already heard of:
Different to any immediate Competitors:
You wouldn’t want your domain to be too similar to any others websites, especially if they are immediate competitors. An example of bad usage of domain name similarity:
These two totally separate companies’ domain names are very similar. If choosing a domain similar in nature to this domain I would highly recommend buying the domain with plurals as well as all top level domain variations, such as .co.uk, .com, .net etc
Easy to Spell:
Domains should be easy to spell and not have too many different phonetic variations. When a website has been up and running for a while you should be able to see from the website statistics exactly what your website visitors are typing in to find you.
An example of a very successful business that doesn’t help itself on the spelling front is Vodafone.
Vodafone realised that lots of people were typing www.vodaphone.com into their address bar and not getting to the website, so what did they do? Bought vodaphone.com and redirect all traffic to the correct www.vodafone.com website.
In future posts we will go onto discuss the different types of TLD’s (Top Level Domain’s) and their uses as well as choosing domains from an SEO
perspective.
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