The long and the short of domain names

There are many ways to go about choosing a domain name for your website. There are also many experts who populate the Internet with sound advice on how to choose the best domain name available. ‘Available’ being the key word in that sentence. If you can think of it, chances are someone else already has and they’ve beaten you to the registration desk.

The list of good, memorable, effective and available domain names is shrinking all the time. We have domain name prospectors or speculators to thank for that. These enterprising individuals spend a great deal of time creating and buying brilliant and powerful domain names so that they can resell them at a much higher price.

You can bypass them by creating a domain that’s unique and accurately reflects your company. There is general consensus on what constitutes an effective and memorable domain name, although as with all fields of expertise, differences of opinion do occur.

Domains should be short, except when long ones represent your company or enterprise more accurately. There are many different opinions regarding this particular point, some experts say that you should strive for a two-word domain and that three words is pushing it. Others contend that you should aim for around 10 characters with a maximum of 20. Names of fifty characters are considered too long. They all agree that shorter names reduce the risk of searcher misspellings and confusion.

Chistopher Heng, from thesitewizard.com, differs from most other experts by saying that long domains are easier to remember than short ones. Sites with abbreviated names, or with names comprised of seemingly unrelated letters, are more difficult to remember than sites that use their full company names. He adds that in terms of SEO, long names with keywords in them provide better results in search engines.

The most important thing to remember is that your domain name must be meaningful to you and to your users.

Extensions are also very important. Internet users consider sites with dot-com extensions to be more reliable and professional than other sites. It’s also the extension that most searchers use when they have to guess. As a result it’s extremely popular and can be difficult to get in combination with your name of choice. Dot-com extensions are advised for businesses that trade internationally.

Country specific extensions such as .co.uk (the United Kingdom), or co.za (South Africa) are especially effective for sites with local interests. The dot-net extension is typically used for technology websites, while dot-info relates to informative sites. Whatever extension you decide on, always market your full domain name, including your extension, otherwise searchers might guess incorrectly and end up on your competitor’s site.

The importance of domains cannot be over-emphasised. It’s the avenue through which people find you online. It’s what they use when they talk about you to others and it’s what they remember. Try and match your domain name to your brand name, but if you can’t do this, your domain should at least describe what you do. If neither of those options is possible, try to create an interesting and catchy domain that’ll stick in people’s minds. The danger with interesting or offbeat domains is that people tend to be suspicious of them. A judicious use of quirkiness, however, will go a long way toward cementing your site in a user’s mind.

Over 100 million domains have already been registered. More are being registered all the time. What are you waiting for?

Recommended sites:

http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/domainname.shtml

http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/domain-select.htm

http://www.sitepoint.com/article/whats-name-snare-good-domain

http://www.entrepreneur.com/ebusiness/gettingstarted/article178286.html

Sandra wrote this article for the online marketers Star Business Internet internet service provider and website hosting one of the leading Internet service companies specialising in business website hosting in the UK