More Than a Name

Having a company website offers you a chance to grow your business identity as well as a way for your target audience (from anywhere in the world) to reach you online. Choosing a domain name for your website is one of the most important steps in establishing your brand or business.

What’s so important about choosing a good domain name? It turns out there’s nothing simple about it.  In today’s digitally driven world, your domain name is often one of the first things someone sees and will affect their impression of your website and your brand. This may be your business’s first impression for many. It’s what will resonate with anyone who visits your website as a part of your brand identity.

What is a domain name?

In Lehman’s terms, a domain name is the unique name of a website. It functions like a home address for your site on the World Wide Web. It’s one of the most important elements of your brand and is crucial to building trust and credibility with customers. It is an integral part of your company identity and should reflect well on the brand you’re trying to build.

“How long can my domain name be?” is a question that often comes up. Your full domain can have a maximum of 253 characters. However, not including the extension, like “.com, .edu, .org, etc…”, the maximum length is 63 characters but can be as short as one character. You can use alphanumeric characters and hyphens, but the domain name must not begin or end with a hyphen.

Choosing domain name

As of 2022, there are more than 350 Million registered domain names, with thousands more getting registered each day. This means that it will be difficult to find a corresponding domain name that matches your brand. Instead of getting caught up trying to choose the perfect name, spend that time building a great brand around a perfectly good domain name. Don’t let choosing a “perfect” domain hold you back from starting your business or project.

When choosing a name, make sure that your domain name should be easy– to remember, spell, and share—whether through social media or in person with friends and family members who don’t live near you. Here are some more quick tips to help you choose a domain name for your website:

• Choose shorter and easy-to-remember names
• Make it easy to pronounce and spell
• Stick with a .com domain name as it is the most popular, easy to remember, and easy to promote
• Do not use numbers or hyphens
• Include targeted keywords
• Stay unique and focus on the brand

Choosing shorter and easy-to-remember names so you can easily tell people what it is—and so they don’t have to look at the entire URL every time they want to visit your site. For example, instead of typing out www.facebook.com, you could simply type in “facebook” (without quotes) into Google or any search engine, like Bing or Yahoo!. 

 If you are stuck on choosing a name and looking for inspiration, here’s a decent list of domain name generators that are highly recommended. These are typically AI-powered and will help you come up with unique name ideas and will check if the domain is available to help you save time.

How to Buy a Domain Name?

Domain names are also an asset to your business since they can be bought, sold, and traded, like stocks or real estate. If you do not want to create a domain name, you can buy your desired name from one of the many domain name registrars. Some popular domain name companies are:

• Domain.com 
• Network Solutions 
• GoDaddy

One point of contention that is usually missed is that buying a domain does not automatically give you a hosting service. Though many WordPress hosting companies do offer domain registration services, you will need to obtain website hosting as well. Using the same company for hosting and domain registration allows you to manage both services under one account, and you will not have to worry about changing name server settings for your domain.

Branding and marketing strategies go hand-in-hand with a great domain name.

When considering the name of your website and what it could be, keep in mind that this is a brand or identity for your company. It should be easy to remember, spell and type. If you know your audience well enough, you will be able to figure out what kind of domain name would work best for them.

In short, a domain name is an asset that can help you establish your brand, build trust with customers, and grow your business. A carefully chosen domain name may increase interest and drive web traffic, while a carelessly chosen one might do the opposite. Know that your domain name is unique to your business, and is one of the cornerstones of your business’s identity on the web – so choose carefully!