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Business Start Up AdviceMarketing

Top tips for choosing a domain name

By 26 September 2012No Comments

It’s really important to have a good domain name for your website. A good domain name can really increase traffic from search engines, and a bad one could really make things much harder when marketing your site (whether for SEO or just on the side of your van).

The top choices

.co.uk
Google will give more relevance to .co.uk domains from searches done from google.co.uk, so if you (and your customers) are based in the UK then .co.uk is our recommendation.

.com
.com is the largest top level domain and it is completely unrestricted. But .com domains are really meant for international companies.

.net
.nets started off being used by organisations involved in networking technologies like Internet Service Providers, but nowadays .net is completely unrestricted and is seen as being a general all-purpose domain name.

.info
.info was actually specifically created for unrestricted use, although it can be interpreted as being for informative internet resources (info is short for information in more than 37 languages).
Other domains explained

.org
.org domains are for non-profit organisations. You may see the odd commercial company using the .org but this is generally perceived as bad practice and misleading.

.edu
Used by education institutions.

.gov
Used by government institutions.

Thinking about the rest of your address

Don’t rush into a decision! This is important and is very difficult/ nigh-on impossible to change later on down the line. Google does take the age of a domain name into account, so the last thing you want to do is pick something you will regret 5 years down the line.

Top tips for writing your web address

  1. Keep it short and sweet – shorter addresses are much stronger for SEO and more memorable
  2. Think about using keywords – keywords are what people will search to look for you. If you have your keyword as or in your domain name it will have a positive impact on your SEO.
  3. Make sure it’s easy to spell – you don’t want people searching for your company and not being able to find you.
  4. Memorable – it helps if your address has a logical connection to your industry
  5. Unique – you don’t want your customers accidentally ending up on a competitor’s website – always double check with a Google search!
  6.  Do some research – use Google’s keyword tool to make sure people are searching for your phrase (if you choose to use a keyword in your domain).

Where should you buy your domain name?

We recommend 123-reg as the best place to buy your domain name. They give you far more control over your web address than many other companies, and the site is clear and simple to use.

Want some advice or a second opinion?

Feel free to give us a call on 01256 845815 if you want a second opinion on your domain name. We’ve seen the effects of the best, the rest and the worst in hundreds of different industries so we’ve developed a very good instinct for what will and won’t work.