A philosopher once said - ‘what’s in a name’; but when choosing the correct domain name for your business, this could be the key to your success. In this modern digital world. the "WWW" or the "World Wide Web" as we now know it, has uncountable websites and they are increasing rapidly on a day by day basis. So, if you want to help your business to the top of the search engines, you may need to be a little more selective about your business’ domain name than you had originaly thought.
Here are 5 tips you may want bear in mind:
1. It has to be short and related to your business niche - make sure you choose the closest available domain name possible.
2. Additionally, the name needs to be catchy and memorable if possible, or people won’t be able to remember it.
3. Choose the correct extension for your domain name for maximum efficiency. Example:
If you plan on starting up a car repair business, then your domain name could be carrepair.co.uk, make sure you steer away from domain-names like friendlyrepairman.org as such names can be harder to identify.
4. Furthermore, you should try to to use a related keyword in the domain name for better SEO results. Just like in the previous example: ‘car repair’ could then also become your seed keyword for the website, this will assist your online marketing for your website too and help you get found on the search engines.
5. Try to avoid hyphens or numbers in your domain, thats because they can often be misunderstood by the user or your viewer. Going back to our example, you would not want a name like www.car-repair123.com unless you have the additonal branding and marketing budget to invest in marketing it.
Significantly, choosing a domain name is like creating a brand or logo for your business. It needs to feel right. Research it, try several domain name providers, compare pricing then you may find the best domain-name first time round. You need to research and purchase the right domain name before anyone else steals it away from you, otherwise you may end up having to buy it back from an online broker and that could prove to be an expensive excercise.
Finally, when you have the right domain-name in your basket, don't waste time thinking about it as this may result in someone else securing it before you do. Buy it and let the journey begin. Remember even the longest journey always starts with the first step.
SEO Flatrate provides a wide range of services for all types of online businesses throughout the UK and for most English speaking countries globally. We offer bespoke consultation for startups as well as established businesses. We can assist you in securing your domain name for your new business idea. Feel free to contact us today for a free consultation and to help you get your business off the ground.
If you would like to hear more about our services please contact the SEO Flatrate team 01202 911141 or email the office, we are here Monday to Friday 9am - 5pm
What types of characters can be used in a domain name?
Domain Services
Benjamin Franklin once said that "If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail" and in many cases this has proven to be so true.
So before you decide on a name for your business, we would recommend making use of the SEO Flatrate Domain Services. It has always been wise to do your homework first to avoid any unnecessary disappointment at a later stage.
Just imagine for one second that you have started a business but you had not researched and secured your domain name before you started to advertise to the world. You could end up with your potential customers trying to locate your business online, but instead of finding your website they find a different business altogether that had already secured your preferred domain name well before you did! Here at SEO Flatrate we specialise in Startup businesses and small to medium enterprises, our team will not only help you find your desired domain name, but we can reserve, secure, host & even manage it for you from within our domain name management portal.
In general, only the following characters may be used in a domain name:
Letters a through z (no accents of any kind will be accepted). Note that domain names are not case sensitive. This means there will be no distinction made between upper case letters and lowercase letters (A = a);
The numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and/or 9
The hyphen character
Using Hyphens
MAny companies tend to use hyphens but there are limits on how you can use hyphens as below:
A hyphen cannot be used to start or end a domain name
Two or more hyphens cannot be in consecutive position
Basic Characteristics
Domain names must:
Be at least 2 or 3 characters long, dependant on the extension, EXCLUDING the extension. For example:
a.com is invalid as the length of the domain without the extension (.com) is only 1 character
why.com is valid as yes is at least 2 characters long
Be no more than 63 characters EXCLUDING the extension
Contain only letters, digits, and hyphens. For example:
It's-2-Bad-Domain.com is invalid as it contains illegal characters
its2gooddomain.com is valid as it does not contain illegal characters
its-2-good-domain.com is also valid as it does not contain illegal characters
Not start or end with a hyphens. For example:
-2-good-domain.com is invalid as it begins with a hyphen
2-good-domain-.com is invalid as it ends with a hyphen
bad--domain.com is invalid as it contains consecutive hyphens
2-good-domain.com is valid as it does not begin or end with a hyphen.
Take out our Domain Management services and we will automatically renew your domain for you, so that you dont risk losing it. If you would like to speak to a SEO Flatrate representative about our domain management services please call us on Bournemouth 01202 911141 today or send us an email to support@seoflatrate.co.uk and a member of the team will get back to you within 24hrs.
