What’s your Domain Name and how did you choose it? Was the domain name that you wanted taken? So did you settle for something less than impressive?

Building and publishing a website is an important way of entering the global marketplace. Most experts agree that when choosing a domain name, the shorter and simpler names are probably the best. Keep it short and sweet, and if you can get it, get a dot-com because people are still more impressed by that than the UK or EU domains.

But since most of the shorter domain names are taken, then people have to choose longer domains and this is where they need help.

Creative spelling says that you’re annoying and that you think your potential customers are psychic. Any words that you would have to spell out to a client are also bad, they need to be intuitive, and you’re suggesting to potential clients that you don’t care about how they find you. But the Internet is all about finding and being found and if you want to be found, you need a domain that says what you do.

For instance, if you were an Office Cleaning Service working in London, you should always try CleanerLondon.com or OfficeCleaning.com first, but if they are gone, then it’s important to add a modifier. BestLondonCleaners.com for instance, allows you to say to tell everyone what you do and where, it also suggests that you are the best.

If you want to ensure that people don’t get confused between you and another company, then buy out all of the available extensions if you can.

Your domain name is your Internet trading name, it doesn’t matter what your real trading name is to people, as they will call your business by the domain name from now on.

There’s also a trick to choosing the right name here. If you’re very specific, like BestLondonCleaners, you can’t easily add a few pages about your photocopying business. So, counter to what we said above, you may wish to choose something that allows you to expand what you do at a later date. Think about Amazon.com for instance. The name Amazon has nothing to do with Books, DVDs or any of the things that they sell. This means that when they started to sell Garden Furniture, they weren’t restricted.

So, clearly there are two main choices to naming your domain. You can either choose something broad enough to encompass future expansion, or something very specific and targeted to what you do. Broad allows you more creativity with the name, but specific has greater SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) value and helps promote your name directly in the URL window.

Thirdly, you should consider your professional image. What you call yourself may be your professional online trading domain for a long time. Building up a reputation and switching domains later could be tricky. So, it’s vital that your domain name sends the right message about your business. It must present to your clients or customers the image that they think of when they think of your organization. This will help them find you online, but also helps to maintain your public image.

Need help choosing a domain name that boosts your business? Speak to Gradwell today about domain name registration, web hosting and email solutions.

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