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When you intend to design a site or a blog you always come to the difficult question of choosing a domain name. Your domain is your digital address. Even if you have the best-looking design, if you get the wrong address, you could lose visitors before they’ve even seen your website. 

So how do you choose the best domain name for your website? 

We will try to provide some practical advice for registering a professional website name. 

1. Associate the domain name with that of the site 

It is more common for blogs than for corporate sites, however, in principle, it is good to match the domain to the site name to encourage research and SEO benefits. The main reason for this choice is simple: people search according to the name they remember; if the name and domain coincide, then you’re in business! 

2. Choose website URL’s that are easy to remember. 

The ideal scenario in choosing the perfect domain is to be able to find a short name, so you avoid the risk of a typo, but also making it easy to remember. Web addresses with these characteristics are easily recognisable and easy to pass to others. The advice that is usually given is not to exceed names consisting of 2-3 words. 

Choose a few and pick the easiest to remember! 

3. Check availability first 

It often happens that you want to register a domain with a name that is not associated with any site but is not available because it has already been purchased by another person or service that registers common addresses and then resells them. 

In this case, there are two possibilities: contact the owner of the domain name and try to purchase it or look for the availability of a domain with the same name but with a different extension, for example, .com or .net if the .UK is not available. 

4. Add brands and keywords 

This tip is perhaps the most fundamental and there are several schools of thought that advocate using multiple keywords within the domain name while others prefer to work on SEO and choose a generic domain that appeals to the brand. 

The advice is to use the business as a first choice, especially if it has a strong and easy-to-remember name while falling back on the keywords in case of unavailability, or in the presence of a niche sector in which certain keywords are part of the common terminology. 

5. Analyse the competition 

As often happens in any sector, understanding your main competitors can be of great help in making the right decisions for our business. If most of them use their brand name as a domain name, it is beneficial not to go out of your way to be unconventional or too quirky; customers may be confused and choose our competitor because they find it more appealing. 

6. Choose the extension 

The choice of domain extension must be evaluated according to the business objectives. E-commerce often uses .com domains as they have more international significance. On the other hand, UK users often feel a greater sense of security when visiting a .UK domain. 

The best advice, however, is this: if you don’t have budgetary constraints, it’s always good to choose different extensions associated with the same domain name. For example, choose domainname.UK, domainname.com and domainname.net while keeping only one site active. 

7. Avoid hyphens (if you can) 

There are pros and cons to using hyphens in your domain name. If the desired domain has already been taken, the use of the same name broken by a dash could be a valid alternative. However, BEWARE, there is the risk of users forgetting to put a hyphen and ending up at your competitor’s site! 

Conclusion 

Finding the perfect domain name is like finding the perfect shirt to match your trousers. Apart from taking time and effort, ultimately, the one that works best for your business and best with your users will inevitably not match up perfectly. But, by following these eight tips, you will be sure to have a domain name that will (as much as possible) match you and your users and last for many years to come. 

If you’d like to know more about digital marketing for your clients, get in touch with one of our digital marketing experts at https://elevateom.com/contact/