Choosing a Domain Name – What is important?

Many of our customers ask us for advice on choosing a domain name.  Often, our solutions boil down to a few quick steps to choosing one that works for usability, brand recognition, and search engine optimization.

1.) Keep it simple

Most people have trouble remembering their mother’s birthday, let alone a long, complex domain name.  Try to keep it down below two or three words, if possible.

2.) Relevance to Industry vs. Company Name

This is one of the points where it isn’t so clear cut.  If you can get your exact company name as your domain name, that might be a good idea.  However, if your company name does not say anything about your industry, you may wish to add a key word at the end of it, so long as it doesn’t make the domain name too lengthy or hard to read.  Example – a company named Excalibur that does web design may wish to get the domain excalibur-design.com, as it adds some relevancy to their domain name.

3.) Geographical Area

Pro Web is located in Traverse City, and so are many of our clients.  Often, the client can’t get their business name as a domain, as it is taken.  Many times in this case we will append the domain name with “tc”, standing for Traverse City.  This is a good way to let your customers know that you are a local business.

There are other important factors to consider, such as which top level domain you wish to use, hyphens, numbers, etc., but these are the three main points to think about when choosing a domain.

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