When starting a new business, or just wanting to create a new website for your business, one of the most difficult tasks is to come up with a suitable domain name. There are so many things that need to be taken into consideration, such as the need to be memorable, the need to represent your business and above all the need to make sure your preferred domain is even available. There is a very good chance that you will spend a lot of time and effort picking the perfect name, only to find out that it has already been taken by someone else. There are tools online that you can use to find out if a domain is available which should be used throughout the domain name choosing process.

The domain name plays a crucial part in a company’s website branding and SEO, so you shouldn’t make the choice too lightly. Before getting started, you should try to gather as much information as you can about domain names. Take a look below to find some tips on how to pick the perfect domain name for your company website.

Use targeted keywords.

Ideally in your domain name you want to be using keywords that are relevant to your industry so that the user can immediately identify what your site is going to be about. There are many free tools around the web that can suggest phrases or words around the term that you want to use in your URL. You can keep trying different keywords until you find one that is available as a domain.

Make sure it is available on social media channels

In order to create a brand, you need constancy across all mediums, including social media channels. To get the best results out of your domain, you should also make sure the name that you want to use is still available on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. If your name is different from these sites it may lead to a consumer struggling to find you, and this is the opposite of what you need to happen!

Make it memorable

When it comes to domain names, they need to be memorable. Sure, a consumer could search for your company site every time they want to find you, but it would be much better and more efficient if they have memorized your domain name and can type it directly into the browser. The best way to make a domain memorable is to keep it short and simple. On average, the top 100,000 websites only have around 9 characters in their domain names, so you should aim for around this number.

Country Code Top Level Domains

These have a number of benefits. It will show your consumers that you are operating in that certain country which is a good way to get customers that like to keep business within the country that they live. There is also the possibility that they will give you an edge over other businesses for a specific country. If you are very local to a specific area, then you could think about including this in your domain name to make it easier for local customers to find your business and actually remember it.

Turn your business name into a phrase

If you really want to include your business name in your domain but it has already been taken, then you can try to include it in some other way. A good way to achieve this is to include your business name into a short phrase. It may also be easier for people to remember your company in this way if you make the phrase easy to remember.

Make sure the name is not blacklisted

People don’t often think about how their domain was used before they purchased it, but there is a very good chance that it may have been blacklisted by sites like Google, making it almost impossible to generate any organic traffic. Some companies try to spam search engines in order to get higher ratings, but it is never long before Google realizes this and backlists then. The company in question will then dump the domain giving some unlucky, honest company the chance to purchase it and still be in trouble with the search engines. You are able to check if your domain has been penalized but doing a site operator search on Google or use various other tools that are available on the web.

Avoid Abbreviations

You may think that if you have a long business name then the way around this would be to abbreviate it and use this as your domain name, however, this is rarely a good idea. Chances are, no one is going to remember an abbreviation. Although it is not ideal, you would be better off using your full name even if it is longer as it will still be easier for people to find you.

Be language aware

When choosing a domain name, you should be aware of what the wording means, especially if you are a global business. You don’t want your domain name to mean something negative in another country as this could dramatically reduce your potential audience. Try to test your domain in a range of different language to make sure that it doesn’t damage your business.

Easy to pronounce

Your potential domain name may look great written down, but when said out loud it could have a whole new meaning, or if it is just abbreviations then it could be very difficult to pronounce. You should try and find a domain name that works just as well written down as it does said out loud. This will make it easier for people to spread the word by mouth or on TV or the radio.