Domain Names for Small Business

Wednesday, 26 January 2011

Choosing a domain name for a small business can be a very difficult task.  It is important for a small business to understand the dynamics of a domain name before they purchase one and go live online.  There are a few things they need to remember when choosing the perfect domain name for their business.

Choosing a domain name for small business

One of the important things that a business needs to remember is the fact that they are choosing a website domain with a top level domain extension.  The top level domain extension is the group of letters at the end of the domain such as ".com", ".net", ".org", ".biz" and other options.  The most common option is ".com" which stands for "commercial" websites and is meant to be used by websites with characteristics of a commercial type website.

If the business name is important for the website, try integrating it into the domain name.  If your company is "Joseph's Mattress Store" then the domain name may be suited as "JosephsMattressStore.com" or a derivative such as "JosephsMattresses.com".  This is important for branding in terms of the business.

Keyword domains are designed to take into account the various keywords associated with the business.  For example, if the company sold mattresses and box springs, the keyword based domain could be "MattressesAndBoxSprings.com" or "mattresses-and-box-springs.com" and derivatives.  This makes it easier for those using a search engine to find the website once it has been submitted to various search engine sites for indexing.  The problem with keyword based domains is the fact that they are hard to use in advertising and can be hard for people to remember.

Brandable domain names are one of the hottest commodities that are available.  It is not uncommon for a company to create a brand from a word that does not exist or is simply made better.  Continuing with the mattress domain concept, a company could choose to use words such as "Mattressicious.com", "Mattressorama.com" or "Matresstic.com" to create their websites for branding purposes.  These types of brandable words are best suited for companies that start online rather than being a physical company first.

The shorter the domain name is, the easier it is to remember which could be a very useful thing when marketing to consumers.  If a company chose the domain name "beds.com" over "mattress.com" it simplifies accessibility to the consumer.  Of course both of those domains are already taken by prominent companies, if the business would have gotten them when they were available they would be better off than using the domain "The-Longest-Domain-To-Buy-Mattresses-And-Mattress-Accessories-From.com".

It is best for the small business to use original names when choosing their domain names.  It can be viewed as copyright infringement if someone uses a domain name that is too similar to another competing business.  Trying to use a domain name with unnecessary added characters not only makes it harder for them to be remembered by customers, but it makes it difficult to enter them manually into the browser address field.  For instance "Mattresses990Awesome.com" is too difficult to remember and many users could mistake "AwesomeMattresses.com" for the website in the future.