How to Pick a Domain Name: The Do&#8217;s and Don&#8217;ts

In our digital world, a website domain name is as important as a brand name. Your domain name is how a lot of people first find your business or organization and that name is how many people remember you. The harder a domain name is to pronounce, type, remember, or distinguish from another domain, the less likely a person is to visit the site, even if that was the orginal intention.

Part art and part methodical science, choosing the right domain for a business should be a process, not just a quick decision. A domain is part of your brand, so once a domain has been registered and populated with content, it has to work well as your “face” in the digital world.

Ears First

Chances are, a lot of people “hear” a domain name before ever reading it. That’s why a good domain name should be easy to translate from sound to text. One of the biggest mistakes of bad domain selection at this stage is the “sound-alike” word. Homonyms like “here” and “hear” or “see” and “sea” can lead to a lot of confusion. Getting stuck with a domain with sound-alike words will force a company to purchase multiple domains and redirect the incorrect ones to the correct one.

Eyes Second

Just as a domain name should be easy to write based on how it sounds, it should also be easy to say based on how it’s spelled. Unusual combinations of letters, such as “XYZ” might not parse as simply as it may seem in an era when strange, made-up words are fairly common in the tech world. To avoid making people have to choose between “Ex-Why-Zee” and “Zix,” a domain shouldn’t require a phonics test in order to pronounce it.

Some Never-Use Characters

Technically, a domain can have any keystroke available on a keyboard. Some things should be avoided altogether, though. Numbers and numerals (6 or VI, for example) are a no-go, since they can be confused easily—should they be spelled out (six) or typed with the number (6)? Punctuation is simply not allowed, so no domain can have an exclamation point (!), a question mark (?), or any other non-letter, non-number character. Hyphens (-) are allowed, but they’re also problematic, as they’re confusing to pronounce and easy to misplace when typing.

Keywords or Brand?

Sometimes, a company’s brand already has high enough name recognition prior to establishing a website how to choose a domain namethat the company name itself can be the domain. That was certainly the case for the likes of Nike and Coke. While a company doesn’t have to be a corporate giant to make the company name and the domain name identical, the company should at least have a strong presence in the community. For new businesses or those who aren’t likely to be found by name alone, going the keyword route can be a smart way to use the domain to capture new business.

A keyword is any word or phrase that is strongly associated with a business’s goods or services. For example, a company that specializes in window installation would have “window” or “windows” and “install” or “installation” as keywords. Be sure the URL is easy to remember and doesn’t overstuff keywords. “” is not as memorable as “” or “”.

Location identification is also an important factor to consider with URLs. For instance, if the window installer in the example above was located in Trenton, New Jersey, the best way to promote their location in the URL is to create a page for the business’s location on the website and structure the URL as:

Do Your Research Ahead of Time

Here’s a common and frustrating scenario: You spend a lot of time trying to come up with the best, most perfect domain name — only to discover that when you try to purchase the domain, someone else already owns it. Before even brainstorming a domain name, you should do some research about what names and keywords have already been claimed. This means generating some keywords associated with your business or organization, then doing a simple browser search to determine if someone else has already snagged them.

Ownership Issues

It’s valuable to shop around for different domain registrars. Domains are usually renewed annually, so it’s important to know when a domain will be up for grabs. Registry services that notify domain owners ahead of time that their domains are about to expire are worth a little extra up-front payment. There’s nothing worse than having a strong domain name that gets purchased by someone else the second it expires. And with automated domain purchasing programs a modern reality, a domain can literally be purchased one second after expiring.

When it comes to who actually owns a domain, the company owner should be the name on the lease. This means that it will always be the company owner who has the responsibility of renewing, selling or changing the domain, rather than a Web developer or someone else on the company team.

Getting to Know Top-Level Domains

The suffix at the end of a Web address (, .org, .net, etc.) is known as a top-level domain. These little indicators of a site’s content have existed since the 1980s and the number of domain extensions has skyrocketed in recent years. One organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers controls what counts as a domain and what doesn’t. Here’s a guide to some of the most common.

  • .com or .co: commerce, company, or community
  • .org: organization, often non-profit
  • .net: technical, network, or infrastructure
  • .biz: business or commerce, often ecommerce
  • .info: informational sites

Some extensions either aren’t available for business use (like .gov for government sites) or typically aren’t used for businesses because they’re not relevant (like .edu for educational institutions). There are many new extensions as well, often allowing for a more specific site. These include locational (.nyc for New York City) and profession-specific (.pro).

A good domain name is short, memorable, and easy to both type and say. It can be a real hassle to change domains midstream, so it’s vital to select the right domain the first time out. Connecting the domain to the company brand or keywords is a great first step, and selecting the right top-level domain extension will make it even more memorable.  Just like office space and company vehicles, a domain is a company asset. The right one can be worth a lot of money, so smart business owners should keep their domains locked down.


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