What's in a Domain Name

In the vast expanse of the internet, your domain name is your unique address. It is where people can find your website and email accounts and is the first impression you make on potential customers, clients, or readers.

There are multiple things that go into a good domain name, and we explore them in this post.

The Importance of a Strong Domain Name

A well-chosen domain name is more than just an address, it’s a reflection of your brand and a tool for SEO. The right domain name can do the following:

Enhance brand recognition – A memorable domain can help people easily recall your business.

Improve SEO – Relevant keywords in your domain can boost your search engine rankings.

Build trust – A professional domain name can instil confidence in your brand.

Direct traffic – A clear and concise domain can guide users to the right place.

Key Factors to Consider

Here are some things you need to consider when choosing a domain name for your business:

Relevance – Your domain name should reflect your business or website's purpose. It can be your business name, or what you do.

Memorability – It should be easy to remember, spell, and pronounce. Make sure to think about any common misspellings that can occur and consider registering those domain names as well.

Availability – Check if your desired domain is available.

Length – Keep it concise and avoid overly long names. If you have a longer domain name in mind also consider a shorter version using an abbreviation for use in emails.

Keywords – If possible, try to incorporate relevant keywords without sacrificing readability.

Extension – If you want to advertise that you’re an Australian business we recommend using an extension with a .au on the end. This includes: .com.au, .net.au, or the latest extension .au by itself.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Just as there are things to think about including in your domain name there are some things to avoid:

Using hyphens or numbers – These can be confusing and affect memorability, especially replacing a word with a number, such as to and 2. If your domain name does have a hyphen then you also want to register the version without the hyphen, such as web-ideas.com.au and webideas.com.au.

Accidentally having inappropriate words – Since a domain name doesn’t have spaces in it to break up the words, you can end up with unintended words where people attribute letters that appear next to each other to different words. E.g. choosespain.com can be read as either Choose Spain (Intended) or Chooses Pain (unintended). Avoid this by writing out the planned domain name and ask multiple different people to read it.

Overlooking future plans – Consider if your domain will still be relevant in the long term. If you have plans to grow your business in an entirely different direction, having a very specific domain name can restrict this.

Tips for Choosing the Perfect Domain

Brainstorm ideas – Write down potential domain names.

Get feedback – Ask friends, family, or colleagues for their opinions. Make sure they communicate any possible concerns.

Check availability – Use a domain registrar to see if your options are available. For .au domains we recommend using the au Domain Administration’s website

Consider variations – If your preferred domain is taken, try different spellings or extensions.

Protect your brand – Register multiple domain variations to prevent domain squatting. This includes different spellings, with and without characters like hyphens, as well as different extensions. Our recommendation is that if someone else having the domain name variation can hurt your brand, you should register it yourself.

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Your domain name is a long-term investment in your online presence. Take the time to consider relevance, memorability, length, and availability to ensure you have a domain name that works for you.

You can contact us to ask any questions about domain name registration that you may have.