Importance of a Good Domain Name

Posted by Leo on August 9th, 2007 at 11:06am

How do you define a good domain name?

First of all, the domain name should be the same as the site title - or somehow closely related. This is very important as people might not remember the domain name, but they are likely to remember the site. They would be able to guess the domain name out of it easily.

A domain name that matches your brand is also important. Say if I want to know about a printer name “abc” series, I would quickly type “www.abc.com” to search for it.

Domain names can be of any length up to 67 characters. However, put yourself into other’s shoes. Will they remember your domain name? I tend to choose domain names that have less characters and easy to remember. Less than 15 characters is generally quite good. The domain of this website, bestwebezy.com, has only got 10 characters.

What about hyphenation? I don’t like it - and many people won’t like it, too. It is very easy to forget the hyphen when typing a domain name. If you have not bought the non-hyphenated version of the domain name, your potential client would be landing on a wrong site. Moreover, when people communicate verbally, they tend to ignore the hyphen. However, the .com names are just running out quickly - so quick that you just can’t avoid buying one with a hyphen now.

And remember to choose the right domain extension - if your business is an ISP, choose .net. If you run a non-profit organization, choose .org. If you run a business rather than internet related businesses, choose .com. Don’t choose .net for a beauty saloon. It won’t work.

If your company is region-restricted, then make sure you got the country extension as well. If you only serve the locals, then don’t go and get a .com. Get a .com.au if you are in Australia.

A good domain name should drive more people visiting your website - and hence increase conversion. You would want people being able to access your company’s information quickly and easily, instead of having to search for the pile of 3000 business cards to find your website - they can simply Google a similar service/product and forget about you.

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