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Can be a bewildering and confusing process!
No doubt you have spent many hours deliberating the ideal name for your business, consulting colleagues and friends and researching options. You may also have been advised about what you MUST have in your name to get anywhere on search engines?
In the early days of search engines, your domain name was massively important. For some time now this has lessened substantially in search engine value terms primarily due to the shortage of amazing names and / or great domains feeding to bad websites!
As a general rule your domain name should be:
- Short
- Descriptive of the business
- Easily spelled
- Easily recalled
- Contain a keyword about the business
A good excercise to write the name out, sometimes names expressed verbally can just look wrong in writing!
Should I choose a .com or a .co.uk domain name?
In general a .co.uk domain should be your primary domain name if you are UK based, this helps search engines understand where you are. A .com domain is more associated with worldwide activites and the US.
Our recommendation when researching domain name is to always check that both the .co.uk and the .com variations are available. It is best to secure the two most popular variations to protect your brand!
It would be pity to have your .co.uk domain in place and then discover someone using the .com name, it is easy for visitors to type the wrong address in which can cause some damage!
Researching names:
Do not type the name into your browser and assume the name is unused beacuse there is no website, there are millions of domains unused but owned.
Use a reputable host, the good ones have a helpful search facility where you can establish right away if your chosen names are free, for example Hostinger UK have a great search facility and an AI driven suggestion facility where you can test variations.
We hope this very brief overview helps you in your planning and invite you to contact us for a more detailed discussion and advice on choosing your name and brand!
Mark Bate
