Domain name registration

The domain name you choose identifies your business in the worldwide web. It is unique.
That is no two websites share a same domain name.

If your business is already established offline and you intend to have an online presence, the first step is to register a domain for your web site. The obvious choice is to have a domain that carries your brick-and-mortar business name.

Find out if your business name is available and register it right now. If someone else takes it before you do then you will have to pay much much more to buy it back.

If business name is for instance XYZ, your customers and prospects will naturally enter XYZ.com in their web browsers when looking for your website.

A difference between the two names (besides the .com) will just lead to confusion and your customers not being able to find your website.

The com extension (top-level domain to be exact) stands for commerce and is the most commonly used for business related domain names.
There are other extensions such as biz, edu, info, net, org or country specific such as us for USA, ca for Canada and so on.

If you don't have a business yet and just starting out online, you should carefully choose the right domain name your website.

Here are some aspects you should consider when choosing a domain name. It should be:
  • meaningful and reflects your business and services offered
    A such domain name gives website visitors a hint about the theme of your business.

  • easy for your visitors to remember
    Not everbody will always have your business card in hands with your web address on it.
    Not everyone will also bookmark your website address after the first visit.

    So, unless your company is already famous you should consider a domain name that is meaningful, simple and sticks in the visitor's mind.

  • as short as possible, 16 characters or less
    A long domain name can be difficult to remember and will be very often be mispelled by potential visitors who therefore will land in someone else website instead of yours.
    In general the limit is 30 characters (including the extension) but 16 is the maximum preferred.

  • appear early in the alphabet
    All things being equal, a business with a name early in the alphabet (i.e. starting an "A") will always appear first in the listing by search engines and directories. Therefore your business will have higher chance to be chosen by a potential customers.