How To Choose The Perfect Domain Name
With over one billion sites online as of 2014, getting the exact domain name you want is not going to be easy. Although you have a business name you have filed, in no way does that mean yourcompanyname.com will be available when you prepare to get a website for your business. Most people assume the first step to starting your own website is the design, but choosing the right domain name is equally important. In many cases, it’s the hardest part of the website creation process.
These days it’s harder and harder to find an “easy to remember” domain that is available. What we recommend to our clients is if their company name is not available, instead of just settling for the .NET(assuming it is available), try to get creative in order to get a variation of the .COM. Your company credibility is crucial in the eyes of your clients and potential clients, and we strongly feel without a .com, you may lose some credibility.
Since your website is bringing your business online to service your clients more effectively and attract new clients, register yourcompanynameonline.com. We do completely understand your concern that with the word online it makes your domain longer, but also realize that short domains are no longer available with 1 billion plus sites online.
Hyphenated Names?
Should you get a hyphenated name? There are some things to consider here:
It’s easy to forget the hyphens when typing a name. Many visitors are used to typing URL’s without hyphens. The worst case scenario is they leave out the hyphens and end up at your competitor’s site.
When people recommend your site to their friends or family verbally, having hyphens in your domain name leads to more potential errors than when the name does not contain hyphens. For example, how do you think your visitors will refer to your site if it is named “acme-plumbing-and-electric.com”? They might say, “I visited Acme Plumbing and Electricity dot com yesterday. It was a great site.” Their friends, remembering that comment later, might type into their browsers “acmeplumbingandelectric.com”.
In conclusion, whenever a visitor reaches your website or scrolls through the results of search engines, they look at your domain name and make that vital first impression analysis that is a crucial component to your online success. Your domain name reveals a lot about your website and that may determine if your visitors click on your website or your competitors’.
An attractive and an appealing domain name can become a crowd puller. A good domain name that is descriptive in nature can be informative about your site content to the visitors.
Choosing a good domain name is not merely a formality. Do spend some time in deciding your perfect domain name.
Where to find cheap domain names
We personally recommend Godaddy to all of our customers, we have had very good experiences with their customer service, they are one of the few domain registrars that actually pick up their phone, most others only have an online support ticket system which takes 24-48 hours to get assistance, online knowledge bases to answer your questions, or even worse, an online form on their contact page for support.
Here is a list of our top 5 companies based on annual cost and customer service: