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Choosing a Domain Name

What is a domain name?

Very simply, your domain name (url, web address) is your Website name. The best possible name for your site is the same as your website name or business name. We'll use my domain name as an example, Sugar Webs. When I purchased my domain name my "ideal" name of sugarwebs.com was taken, so I moved on to sugarwebs.net. Unfortunately for a lot of businesses just starting their web presence many of the names have been taken. Therefor, you want to make a list of names that would be acceptable to you such as: sugarwebs, sugarwebsonline, sugarswebsites, swonline, etc. (.com,.net,.co,.biz)

Long or Short Domain Name
My belief is that shorter is better. Your domain name should be easy to remember and short in length. Many businesses have moved to initials or just a few letters. You can have up to 67 letters in a domain name. There are, of course, pros and cons to this. A shorter name will be easier to remember, spell, and fit on marketing materials. A longer name can hold keywords that can be very beneficial to your search engine optimisation.

Ideally you would get both. The short domain would be the business name or initials that people would remember. (sugarwebs.net) This would be the domain that you verbally tell people to visit, place on marketing materials, and use as your email addresses. Keywords on domain names are important to help you get higher ranking in search engines (Google, Yahoo!, Bing, etc.). When selecting domain names you want to think up a strategy to help get your site listed high in the search engine results. So the long name, we'll use me as an example again, (e.g. sugarwebsfreelancewebdesignservices.com) would be the one that you use for search engine promotion. The long name would permanently redirect (point to) to the short name / your website.
If you only have money for one domain, my suggestion is to get started with the short domain, your website / business name. When you're ready to spend more money to get an additional domain name, then go buy the long domain with keywords on it and set it as a permanent redirect to your short domain.

Should You Hyphenate or Use "Other Characters" in Your Domain Name?
You can have hyphenated domain names, example: sugar-webs-websites.net. The disadvantages using this kind of domain names are that people don't remember it easily and seldom forget the hyphen. The search engines, on the other hand, will be able to distinguish your keywords better. This type of domain name is good for your keywords "long domain" name that will be used for search engine promotion but not so good for your "short name".

What About The Extension? .com .net .org or?
There are many domain name extentions available right now. .com is still the most popular one, you should go for .com first, .net is usually the next choice but now there is the new .co extension and .info may also be available. For non-profit organizations .org is usually used. For business use only, the extension .biz may be available. Other extensions (.info, .net, .co, .biz) are usually chosen when the .com is not available. Some extensions are reserved for use by certain entities only such as .gov (U.S. Government), .edu (U.S. Listed Educational Institutions), .mil (U.S. Military), etc.

Checking For Domain Name Availability
No matter where you decide to buy your domain, you should be able to check for it's availability on their site. I usually check availability at www.NetworkSolutions.com. You can check up to 10 domain names at a time and the availability display is simple to read. Not only do they show you the availability of your selected extensions, but all the others as well. Ready to browse for your domain? Check it's availability now at www.NetworkSolutions.com

Sugar's Tips On Purchasing A Domain Name

TIP #1: Do not rush into buying a name just because it is available. Chances are you have some time to purchase and dependent on your web host, the domain name registration may be included in your hosting fees. A lot of web hosts offer free domain name registration, some even offer you a free domain for the life of your hosting account with them! So check your hosting plan before purchasing, it may save you a few bucks!

Tip #2: Google domains offers $10 domains, a couple of stipulations on that:

• it must be a brand new domain, Google does not accept transfers
• Google only offers .com,.net, .info, and .biz extensions

Google does not actually register your domian, they have partnered with GoDaddy and eNom. The great thing about Google domains (for Google Lovers, like myself) is that your domain comes automatically configured with:

• Google Apps pre-configured for your domain, including Google Sites, Gmail for custom email addresses, Google Docs, and Google Calendar.
• Full DNS control and management (You wouldn't believe how many hosts charge you for this!)
• Private registration to protect your personal information (Many hosts charge you for this as well!)
• Domain locking to protect you from unauthorized domain transfers

For small businesses, I personally think the Google Apps are great and the small package is free.