Internet Marketing Blog | Tom Duong

Have you ever wanted to go to a site that you were visiting the other day, but for the life of you, you can’t now remember?  No, it’s not time to pack it in and start taking more fish oil for forgetfulness – the truth is that the domain name that you were thinking about just wasn’t that memorable!

When you are starting an online business or putting an existing business online, you will find that there are plenty of reasons for you to be concerned about the domain name that you are going to be choosing.  Your domain name can make the difference between mediocre sales and spectacular one, and once you have picked it, you will, for the most part, be stuck with it.  I’ve found that your domain name is part of your brand strategy as well as part of the way that people identify you, and if you want everyone to keep you in mind, no matter what their memory is, you’ll find that you need to keep a few things in mind.

Should I Use Dashes?

You’ll find that one way to break up the URL and to get a more commonly worded domain name is to break up the domain name with dashes.  While there are some successful websites that do this, you’ll find that there are reasons to avoid it.  It is generally understood that websites with dashes look less professional than ones without, and you will also find that for the most part, typing in the dash will be a bit more difficult for your customers.  While this isn’t a huge thing, you’ll find that this small bit of difficulty can make a difference.  Unless your business actually has a dash in the name, avoid this convention.

Choosing the Extension

When you go to choose your domain name, you’ll find that you have a choice between addresses and their extensions.  If at all possible, you’ll find that choosing the .com extension is going to work the best for you.  While choosing the .net or .org option could also work, you’ll find that generally .net is best for Internet or tech related business and .org usually refers to a non-profit organization of some kind.  You’ll also find that if you are looking to market only to a particular country that you can pick a country specific extension, like .ca for Canada and .fr for France.

Subject of the Domain Name

Your domain name should reflect directly on your business.  For instance, your company’s name can be made into your domain name, unless it has already been taken.  You’ll find that this will cut down on confusion.  If you cannot get your company’s name, you may want to take a look at what your company does.  When someone looks at your URL, they should have a rough idea of what you do, whether it’s computer repair, clothing alterations or cheese sale!

Things to Stay Away From

The more variables that happen to be in your domain name, the more difficult people are going to find it.  In my experience, you should never use abbreviations unless they are extremely obvious and you should stay away from numbers as well.  This makes it easy for your customers and for the search engines to find you and this can go a long way towards getting your traffic where you want it.

Shorter Is Better!

Remember what I was saying before about the memory issue?  The truth is that most people don’t have great memories and if their friend mentioned something about your site, they are going to want to get back to it.  If they can’t remember it, on the other hand, everyone’s got problems and you will find that you want to avoid this at all costs.  Keep it as short and as recognizable as you can. Balancing between a good length and a memorable name can be a bit tough, but it is important to keep in mind.

Choosing the right domain, one that even your grandmother can remember is extremely important if you want to do some Internet marketing.  Lots of people are looking to make sure that they can get the right results when it comes to putting their work online, so get off to a good start with a domain name that is easy to remember!

I hope you find this post useful and as always – you’re more than welcome to post your feedback in the comments.