How to Choose a Good Domain Name for Your Website or Blog

Choosing a domain name for your website or online business can be one of the most important steps in establishing your brand, online store or blog.

A good domain name can set you up for years of success.

If you start with the wrong domain name, it can seriously hurt your business, and can be a hassle to do a domain change later on without hurting your brand and search rankings.

Hence, it’s really important that you choose the best domain name from the start.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to choose a good domain name following 9 simple strategies to come up with a perfect domain name for your business, brand website or blog. I have also added places where you can register your domain as well as how to register your domain if you are a beginner.

9 Simple Strategies to Choose a Good Domain Name for Your Website or Blog

1. Keep it simple and brandable

Keep your domain name short, snappy, and memorable. It should roll off the tongue without being generic or awkward to say.

The sign of a strong brand is when it takes on a more generic meaning. Kleenex is a prime example of this. People will ask for a Kleenex (a brand), when what they really mean is just a tissue. Google is another perfect example. To “Google something” is now an action, not just a website.

You want your domain name to have that kind of power. Ideally it will be synonymous with its function, meaning it’s congruent with what you’re trying to communicate or sell. The opposite of being congruent would-be selling sushi when your business owns BurgerBarn.com.

Keep in mind, being brandable is equivalent to being easy to remember. If you choose your phone number as your domain name, no one will remember your site name, let alone want to visit it.

Don’t feel like you have to pigeonhole yourself into specific meanings either.

You don’t necessarily need to be understood to be memorable. Most don’t know the folk tale referenced by Alibaba.com. In fact, it’s not a stretch for a person to think they used baby talk to decide their business name. But here’s the key point: Alibaba is extremely memorable and brandable. It rolls off the tongue nicely.

A brandable domain name is also one that stands out from the competition. McDonalds doesn’t sound like Subway, and Starbucks sure doesn’t sound like Dunkin Donuts.

If you’re stuck on creating brandable domain name ideas, pick up a thesaurus or use one of the many domain name generators out there (we’ll list our favorite tools at the end of this article).

Also, don’t forget to ask friends and family what they think or feel about a domain name you’ve come up with. Ask them for their honest opinion and whether they think they could remember it.

DONTS:

If possible, skip unnecessary words like “a” or “the” or anything which feels tacked on. Facebook.com was TheFacebook.com, which definitely doesn’t have the same snap.

In line with ditching extra words, generally speaking you should avoid being generic, meaning bland, ordinary, hard to remember, and generally underwhelming.

Here’s a checklist for the brandable domain name points we’ve covered so far:

• Keep it short, snappy and easy to say.
• Be congruent with your messaging.
• Feel free to drop specific meanings.
• Use a thesaurus to look up synonyms for great words.
• Ask for people’s opinions.
• Get rid of extra letters like “a” “the” “that” and so on.
• Take the long view and avoid being generic.
• Be brandable with your domain name and you’ll be miles ahead of most.

When creating a website for your online business or starting a blog, a brandable domain makes you appear more credible and trustworthy.

2. Use the right domain extension (but keep a bias towards .com)

When it comes to choosing a domain name, it’s often better to be as free as possible. This way you can pivot easily with no hold barriers.

The old school .com TLD is still the most widely known (and recognized) domain extension available. It’s burned into our common lexicon and expectations.

According to Rand Fishkin of Moz.com, a .com TLD is vital for superior brandability. For most people choosing a domain name, it makes sense to lean towards that extension.

According to this research stats from domaintools, over 75% of all existing domains use the .com extension, with .net and .org coming in second and third.

3. Think local (sometimes)

Ok, you’ve got your brandability mindset ready to rock and roll, but what if you own a business which resides in a specific country? Does that change things?

Sometimes.

If your new domain is intended for a specific country, you’re going to want to consider using an address extension relevant to that country. For instance, Amazon is known for using local top level domains (TLDs) for multiple countries it operates in.

Even if you live in the United States, you’ve probably landed on an Amazon.co.uk page at some point.

That co.uk TLD emphasizes the site’s focus on servicing areas around the United Kingdom with goods. Buyers instantly know if they are on the right site from that single bit of information.

If you’re starting a BMW fan site specifically for Germans, the .de TLD could really come in handy. At the root of all this is your site’s “trust factor” in how it’s perceived. Rather than just being a random site amongst millions, a local domain can show you clearly operate in their country.

You can run into a few tough spots with local domains however, such as running the risk of competing with a .com now or in the future. If possible, get all versions of your domain and register them all to keep your brand identity safe.

4. Choose a domain name that Is easy to pronounce and share

When considering your domain name, picture how you’d share it in spoken word format. Imagine how a podcast you sponsor might mention it or how you’d share it yourself in video content.

When choosing your name, say out loud how you’d tell someone to visit your website.

Here’s a REALLY BAD example of how that could go: “Go visit my website WWW, dot, rad, underscore, cat, dash – a dash not spelling dash – scratchers, underscore, lucky, forty-two – spelled out not the numbers – dot, com.”

Here’s how that monster domain looks: www.rad_cat-scratchers_luckyfortytwo.com

Leave the hyphens, underscores, and numbers (if you can). If it can be a cause for confusion when reciting or when typing, skip it.

You also want to avoid situations where letters double up on each other (if it’s practical). Something like Redssandwichessaucesandmore.com is really hard to read and type. The chance for error is huge.

So, talk it out and think hard about how to help those searching for your site!

5. Keep your domain name length short and simple

It goes without saying that using a word like antidisestablishmentarianism in your domain name is a ticket to having a lonely website.

If you can shorten up your domain name while still maintaining your brandability, you’re golden. Noah Kagan of SumoMe reportedly spent 1.5 million dollars on shortening his domain by two characters.

What was the big transformation?

His site transformed from Sumome.com to Sumo.com.

That’s $750,000 per character.

Dave Asprey of Bulletproof Coffee fame took a similar approach, axing “coffee” from his domain name BulletproofCoffee.com, instead going to Bulletproof.com.

Why did they do this?

Because generally speaking, when it comes to choosing your domain name, shorter is better. Shorter domain names are simply easier to remember, type, and share.

And rather than spending a million bucks later to shorten things up, why not keep it short to begin with?

Think of your favorite sites. Amazon. Google. Facebook. Twitter. They’re all short domain names that are easy to remember and type.

When choosing your domain name, keep it short and sweet.

6. Research domain copyright and trademarks

You’ve gone through the paces and your super-epic-awesome-sauce domain name checks all the boxes. It’s brandable, it’s short, you left the underscores home, and you even see a .com available.

What else could you want?

Now it’s time to make sure you don’t get sued.

Even though it’s (hopefully) not your intent to infringe on another person’s trademark, you want to do your research ahead of time to make sure your site isn’t really close to another well-established company. The closer your domain name is to an established brand, the greater the chance you’ll get a cease-and-desist letter ordering you to shut your site down.

A quick Google search is a good place to start, but if you really want to dig deep, search your trademark authorities to see if anything comes up.

If you’re concerned that your chosen name is too close to a trademark or have another brand name in it, you have two options:

• Choose a different name
• Consult an attorney to ensure you’re safe

7. Check social media for brand availability

You’re not ready to purchase that domain name yet, although you’re getting close.

Somewhat in line with brandability, it can be extremely useful to align your social network profiles with your domain name. This increases familiarity with your site and helps your followers and customers find you more easily online.

If you want to check the availability of your domain name across multiple social networks, you can use a tool like Knowem.com. This tool will search through the top 25 social networks for you, saving you a ton of time.

While it’s not the end of the world if your social handles are taken, you stand to benefit more if you can align yourself across platforms.

Alternatively, you can add words like “Official” at the end of your social media handles if you can’t let your domain name go.

Adding the “official” title to social media profile these days is a very common practice.

You can use any graphics design tool of your choice to design logo and or alternatively hire an experienced freelance graphics designer to create stunning visual and branding for your brand across all social networks. This social media image sizes guide will help you get the right image sizes to use.

8. Be cautious if you want to buy an old domain

Like buying a used car, when buying an old domain name, you can sometimes get an awesome deal and other times you can be left stranded on the side of the road with a check engine light.

If they haven’t been sitting parked on an auction site forever, then old domains have a past. Sometimes this past is good, while other times it’s not and the domain could actually hurt your business.

If the previous owners of the domain tried to use shady techniques to boost their Google rankings, there’s a chance that Google penalized the domain or even removed it totally from their listings.

For lack of a better term, this means the domain was basically blacklisted depending on the degree of the offense.

Ismywebsitepenalized.com is a popular tool for checking a domain’s penalty status, but it’s not entirely foolproof. You can also run a domain WHOIS report to determine who the past owners of the site were.

Alternatively, you might also use the Way back machine from Archive.org to get a sneak peek into past iterations of the site.

You’ll have access to any snapshots the Wayback Machine took of the site, giving you a little bit of context as to what sorts of content existed in that domain.

9. Use domain name tools and generators to come up with good domain names faster

If your head is swimming after learning all of the considerations that go into choosing a domain name, you’re not alone.

Even with a thesaurus and all the tactics we mentioned, it can still be challenging to come up with the right domain. To help you in your domain choosing quest, here are a few tools that might help you narrow things down:

• Lean Domain Search from the crew at Automattic lets you enter a “seed” keyword from which it will propagate a serious number of ideas.
• The Shopify Business Name Generator works similarly though it’ll steer you towards starting an ecommerce site on their platform.

Below is a video tutorial on how to choose a good domain name for your website.

What to do after you find the perfect domain name for your blog or business

Register it Yourself

Letting someone else register your domain for you is like making someone else the owner of your business. It’s giving them complete power over the future of your site.

This can lead to extortion, or headaches of all kinds and it’s really not worth all the potential hassle and exposure.

Save yourself the trouble and always register your domains yourself under your name.

Use a Reputable Domain Registrar

Because so much is riding on this domain, you don’t want to use a disreputable registrar to fulfill your order.

Some mainstay domain registrars are:

• Namecheap
• Bluehost
• A2 Hosting
• GoDaddy
• Google domains

Just realize that prices fluctuate and may not be consistent between providers, especially once you start factoring in things like Who.is protection.

Shop around and compare prices. If you really want to get a good deal, search for seasonal coupon offers, which could save you a pretty penny.

Buy Other TLDs

Once you lock down your main TLD extension, you might want to look at landing the other popular TLDs related to your site. This will up your yearly costs but will prevent others from snagging up relevant domains to your brand.

These can include .org, .net, .co, .co.uk, and many others depending on what your budget allows. This will also prevent people from hijacking those URLs and then attempting to sell them back to you at an exorbitant rate.

You’ll also prevent scammers from creating lookalike sites with very similar looking domains.

Buy the Commonly Misspelled Versions

This is a luxury purchase, but if your budget allows you might consider purchasing the commonly misspelled versions of your chosen domain. This will ensure that someone will end up on your site even if they misspell your domain name.

Typing in www.faceebook.com is just one example of how companies purchase misspellings to redirect traffic which had a few fat-fingered mishaps.

If you can afford the expense and plan on getting a sizeable amount of traffic, this is certainly an option to look into.

Don’t Panic If Your Domain Name Is Taken

If your domain name has already been purchased by someone else, you still have a few options:

If the domain is “parked” and not in use (meaning it only has ads and has no real website), then it’s very likely a squatter bought the domain just to sell it. If there’s no contact information immediately apparent, you can normally use the who.is database to pull up the owner’s email.

If there’s an established site on the domain, there’s a small chance you can still purchase it.
That said, often the owners are very invested in the properties they’ve built. It’s a snowball’s chance in a sauna they’ll let it go, but there’s still a chance. Again, you can use the who.is database again if no contact info is readily apparent.

If the domain is a total ghost town where it doesn’t even seem parked, or being used, you can search domain-flipping hotspots for potential leads. Places like Flippa, Sedo, SnapNames or even GoDaddy’s domain marketplace are all possibilities.

Be prepared to shell out some serious cash to get your hands on a domain owned by someone else.

It’s not uncommon for would-be purchasers to spend upwards of $1,000 in locking down a domain from an auction house.

And if you’re going for a big fish, you’ll need some seriously deep pockets like the ones which funded Sumo.com’s $1.5 million dollar domain acquisition.

Learn more

Now that you probably have a domain name ready, it’s time to set up your website and take your business live online.

• Create a free website. You can do this using WordPress or any other Content management system of your choice.
• Choose a suitable hosting for your website.
• If you choose to use WordPress, here’s a list of the best WordPress hosting to use.
• Use a good website builder to build your website.

Choosing a domain name can feel overwhelming with all of the considerations brought to bear, but if you take things slowly and follow this guide step-by-step, you’ll be on the right track.