You may believe that coming up with a name for your online business would be very easy, but most likely it'll be more difficult than you think. It's one of the most important things you need to do, and you really need to invest the creativity into it that will make the name for your online business memorable to others as well. Here are some tips we have gathered for you to consider.
- Choose a keyword rich domain name. Such as citylinks.com.au or bedcentral.net.au to reflect your products or service
- Buy an existing / expired domain name. Google ranks old domains higher so look for domains that are at least 1 year old.
- Choose a TLD (top level domain name) - examples: .com or .net or .org or .info Alternatively, the country specific TLD is also good - so for Australia: .au
- Check to see if all the TLDs are available for purchase. The extra cost will prevent issues further down the road. For example : glancecreek.com , glancecreek.net, glancecreek.com.au , glancecreek.biz , glancecreek.net.au should be purchased if available.
- Purchase the main Domain name for the longest registrattion period available - Google ranks higher domains which are purchased for extended periods.
- Short and memorable is better for return visitors and are easier to remember.
- Choose a domain name ideally with no hyphens - so chateauxproperty.com is better than chateaux-property.com. If there is no suitable alternative, choose a domain name with NO more than one hyphen. It will not look professional and there is evidence that Google is penalising NEW sites with lots of hyphens.
- Do not choose an existing Brand / Trademarked name - you may not win a legal challenge.
- You can only use letters, numbers and hyphens. No spaces! We think numbers do not look professional unless it is directly linked to your product or business.
- Use one registrar for purchasing / parking your domain names. It is much easier when you have to update contact information, re-new domains, etc.
- Keep your contact information up to date on the Registrar site especially the contact email address. You do not want to lose a valuable domain because you never received the renewal information.