Before you commit to a domain name, you may want to consider the following points. It can be a tedious and damaging process to change your domain name after you’ve been running for a while—so it’s something you want to get right the first time around.

Domain names vs website names

If possible, you should try to make your domain name the same as either your name if it’s a personal site, your company’s name, or your website’s name. This isn’t always an easy task, especially if you’re in a competition-heavy field and don’t have a very unique name.

Naming your site after your domain may seem like the obvious thing to do, but surprisingly, not every website is named this way. Naming a site after its domain name is important, for the simple reason that when people think of your website, they’ll naturally think of it by name. If your name is also your URL, they’ll automatically know where to go. Particularly with less tech-savvy internet users, some people will actually try looking for a person or company by typing “businessname” followed by “.com” into their browser before using a search engine—I’ve seen this happen.

If you choose not to name your URL after your website for whatever reason, then you’re relying on users to return to your site either by bookmarking it or by searching for it again in a search engine. For this reason, it really pays to have a domain name that reflects your site or business because there are fewer things for your visitors to remember.

The correct length for a domain name

Technically, a domain name can be any combination of up to 67 alpha-numeric characters including or excluding hyphens, followed by an “extension”. Acronyms and abbreviations can in some instances be easy to remember if they have a catchy ring to them, as can longer domains if they flow nicely. Which is easier to remember; ytmnd.com or yourethemannowdog.com? I’ll bet your answers would split evenly here. There is no right or wrong length for your domain name—what it really bores down to is how simple it is to use and remember.

Double characters for separate words

When your name or business name is made up of more than one word and the last letter of the first word is the same as the first letter of the next word, users can become confused as to what the exact domain name is. Let’s take a look at this example; imagine our trading name was Business Seven—what would be the best domain name to use?

1. www.businessseven.com
2. www.business-seven.com
3. www.business7.com

While under normal circumstances, it’s considered best practice to avoid hyphens because it breaks the users’s natural typing process, this particular case would be an exception because there is no way you’d want to have three of the same letter in a row.

Using a combination of numbers and alpha-characters in domain names has become quite a fashion in recent years, with websites such as 37Signals, 45Royale and 24Ways being prime examples. However, it’s only a good idea to use this technique if that accurately reflects your company’s name ie. Business7 not Business Seven. Therefore, the best choice would be number 2, as it is the easiest to absently type while also representing the business most accurately.

Hyphens in domains with multiple words

Hyphenated domain names are often frowned upon for quite a few solid reasons. However, there are some advantages, and often it can be unavoidable if all of your other options are already taken. Should you get a hyphenated name for your website? There are a few things to consider:

Disadvantages

It’s easy to forget the hyphens when typing a name. Most websites do not have hyphens, which has forced users to get used to typing out multiple words without spaces or hyphens. In some cases, your users could actually leave out the hyphens when typing in your address and end up at your competitor’s site or something completely irrelevant and get the wrong impression of you and your service.

It’s hard to communicate a hyphenated domain name offline. Imagine telling someone your website address over the phone or in person if it had a couple of hyphens in it? Not easy.

Advantages

On the other hand—although it’s not as great an issue anymore with modern search engines being much more sophisticated, it can be easier for the engines to distinguish the keywords used in your domain name and thus return your site more prominently in search results for those keywords, if you do use a hyphen.

Over-the-top creative license

Creative license is great—but you can always have too much of a good thing. Many business names or website names are made up of commonly used words with spelling modifications or puns. This can give you a funky looking name for sure, but how easy is it for your users to remember at the end of the day? It’s a lot easier to navigate to www.graphicdesign.com than www.graffikdezyne.com isn’t it? Your users and search engines could also become confused and associate you with the wrong subject matter.

This is definitely something to consider when choosing your domain (and even your business name). I for one, learnt this the hard way with my previous website, having to physically spell out the word over the phone and in person for many users, causing frustration and unnecessary confusion.

How close is too close?

On the other end of the scale, you don’t want your domain name to be too similar to your competitors’, or your users could navigate away from your site and on to theirs. This is why it’s always a good idea to purchase the .com, .net and .org versions of your domain if possible. You can then setup a domain redirection and point them all to the one “master” site. This will help with SEO results and just make life a little bit easier for your users.

Summary

In conclusion, it’s important to note that there is no “correct” domain name, but rather a set of guidelines and common sense that should be considered to ensure the maximum accessibility to your site and the success of the ultimate offering. Try to keep your domain as simple as possible, at a comfortable length and with relevant keywords. If possible, purchase commonly used extension variants just to be safe and avoid being too similar to your direct competition. If you can check all of those boxes, your chances of having a “web-friendly” and accessible website will be much greater.