Choosing A Domain Name
Tell fifty people you are about to choose a new domain name for your website and you will inevitably receive fifty differing opinions on the matter. Unlike choosing your business name, there are other factors which also need to be considered which you may come to regret later if you overlook them. We have examined and listed the factors that should be considered when you choose your domain name.
Where In The World?
If your business is based in the UK, you really should use a co.uk domain suffix. This is important for two reasons. Firstly, when potential customers are scanning the listing in a search engine, they will want a UK based company. Unless you are selling your products worldwide, you don’t want potential customer to overlook your web site because they assume it’s not for a UK based company. If you need a local Photographer, which website would you be more inclined to click on?
www.smithphotography.comwww.smithphotography.co.uk
It’s pretty obvious that the latter company is UK based whilst the first one could be anywhere in the world. Secondly, search engines will also give more weight to co.uk domain names when somebody searches for ‘results from the UK only’, as they can with most major search engines. A .com domain name doesn’t allow the visitor to determine the geographic location of the business without visiting the website so may deter customers looking for a local UK based company.
Size Matters
Whilst having a long domain name won’t necessarily harm your website with search engine ranking, you will have to live with it for the life of your website. Let us give you an example. Robert Griffiths owns a kitchen fitting company and wants a domain name for his new website. Without a great deal of thought, he decides upon:
www.robertgriffithskitchenfitters.co.ukThere are two issues with the size of this domain name. Firstly, if you can imagine the website being advertised on the side of a vehicle or a shop window. It would take some detailed analysis from somebody trying to decipher the actual words in the domain name, let alone being able to remember them. Secondly, can you imagine how annoying it will be for Robert Griffiths every time he has to relay his website or email address to somebody? Inevitably he will have to spell out the entire domain name to everyone and there is far too much opportunity for somebody to make a spelling mistake with the domain name when emailing him or entering the web site address into a browser. There are a number of better alternatives that Robert Griffiths could have tried, namely:
www.griffithskitchens.co.ukwww.griffit.co.uk
www.rgkitchens.co.uk
Personally, griffit.co.uk seems a strong contender as it’s only a short, two syllable name and has a relatively catchy ring to it. There is also a good chance that the domain name will not have already been registered. Don’t be put off by not having your actual company name in the domain name, it’s far more important to have a short, catchy name that people can remember than a detailed description of your business.
Say It How It Is
I’m sure there a thousands of company owners across the country who rue the day they thought they’d be a bit too clever when naming their business and website. We came across a number of particularly good (bad) examples:
www.ezylet.com (Easy Let)www.xcite-energy.com (Excite Energy)
www.hispeed.co.uk (High Speed)
The problem with the three above examples is that in every case, when you refer to the website address or email address for somebody within each organisation, you will have to spell out the domain name because of the non-standard spelling. The first example, Ezylet actually commissioned a very expensive series of radio adverts and spent valuable air-time spelling out their website address because of the quirky spelling. If your company is already established and the business name has an unusually spelt or difficult word in it, don’t fall into the trap of the three companies above and carry it through to your domain name. If the owners of the three above business had come to AVARA for advice, we think the following domains would have been far more appropriate:
www.easyletting.co.ukwww.exciteenergy.co.uk
www.highspeedcouriers.co.uk
Whilst the above domains may not have been available when the business owners came up with their domain choices, it would have certainly been worthwhile spending some time considering possible alternatives.
To Hyphen Or Not To Hyphen?
There is great debate about the use of hyphens in domain names. Some people think hyphens help to break up words and make reading a domain name easier whilst others think hyphens just make describing your website address much more difficult. Let’s take the example of Robert Griffiths and his kitchen fitting company again:
www.robert-griffiths-kitchen-fitters.co.ukwww.robertgriffithskitchenfitters.co.uk
Whilst the first example is certainly easier to read, can you imagine being Robert Green and telling a customer your website or email address? “Yes Madam my email address is Robert at Robert, hyphen, Griffiths, hyphen, kitchen, hyphen, fitters dot co dot uk.” Do that seven or eight times a day and you’ll soon regret your choice of domain name. However, there are times when using a hyphen is almost a necessity. For example, if an un-hyphened domain name you particularly want has already been taken then the hyphen alternative may be the only option. For example:
www.surreybuilders.co.uk – domain name already registered so try,www.surrey-builders.co.uk
In the second example, even with the hyphen the domain is still easy to remember and has six syllables (sur-rey, hy-phen, buil-ders) which is just about acceptable for a domain name unlike Mr Griffiths with his fourteen syllable domain name. To conclude, the use of one hyphen in a domain name is acceptable although you are adding two additional syllables to your domain by having one so just try to keep to the six syllable rule with the actual words you hyphenate and you’ll be okay.
What’s In A Name?
Let’s imagine you own a car parts company in London. You may think that the most obvious choice of domain name would be www.londoncarparts.co.uk because it is actually a term people will search for rather than a business name. Unfortunately it is highly likely that the domain name is already taken by somebody with the same thought process. However, if you type the phrase ‘London car parts’ into Google, you’ll find that not one of the websites on the first page contains the domain name ‘London car parts’. More interestingly, if you did own the London car parts domain name, you wouldn’t be guaranteed a top position within Google just because of the domain name alone.
You can further test this with just about any descriptive phrase or word to see how Google delivers its search results. It does make for interesting research and somewhat dispels the myth that a domain name needs to include the searched phrase or keyword to attain popularity with Google. Indeed if that were the case, what relevance are the following website domain names to the products or services they offer:
www.ebay.co.ukwww.monster.co.uk
www.amazon.co.uk
www.google.co.uk
Despite these websites being hugely popular, none of their domain names have any relevance to what their respective companies actually do. Having a domain name that includes a description of your product or service really isn’t something to fret over. Search engines are now highly sophisticated and use complex algorithms to determine the best website results when a visitor conducts a search. Whilst there is some evidence to suggest that some search engines do still use the domain name as part of their search process, the main search engines now go far, far beyond such a simple search element.
The only other issue you might want to consider is from a descriptive point of view. For example:
www.jonesfencing.co.uk a Surrey based fencing company might prefer.www.surreyfencing.co.uk
The coin a famous marketing phrase, the second domain name tells the audience “exactly what it does on the tin”, i.e. that this website is for a Surrey based fencing company. The first domain name only tells the audience that Jones are a fencing company but on the flip-side, it does create an awareness of that company and its brand which is also highly important.
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