Choosing The Best Domain Name
A domain name is a bit like your home address, and enables users to find you by telling your web browser where to look to find your website.
A new business start-up should register their domain name as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.
Getting the best domain name is important!
Choosing a domain name for your website is a very important step when it comes to achieving your online ambitions. There are many things to consider which effect both your presence in the search engines result pages as well as your offline advertising material such as leaflets and business cards.
Important considerations
- Your company name
- Your main search phrase your customers may use to find you
- Whether or not to use hyphens
- Print media such as leaflets and business cards
Your company name
A domain name that reflects your company name is essential as it not only increases brand awareness but is also easily remembered. This allows us to have email addresses such as anything@yourcompany.co.uk which looks great on business cards and is easily remembered.
We suggest using a .co.uk domain name to target the UK market as this lets prospective customers know you are based in the UK.
Your main search phrase
Although your company name may be the best choice for your domain name there can also be a considerable advantage to getting your main search phrase to be part of your domain name. This is especially true when it comes to getting found in the search engine result pages.
We recommend registering both a domain name that reflects your company name as well as one which reflects your main target search phrase. Host your website on the domain name containing your primary search phrase, use the other one for email and ensure it forwards back to your other domain name just in case somebody goes to that address.
Whether or not to use hyphens in your domain name
For the words in a domain name to be understood properly by all search engines the use of hyphens is required. So for this reason we recommend using hyphens in the domain name containing your primary search targeted search phrase.
However, the domain name that contains your company name, used primarily for print should not contain hyphens as this can be problematic when it comes to remembering. You can always make it clearer by using capitals such as:
www.MyCompany.co.uk or by using different colours for each word.
