Things To Consider

When buying a Domain Name, you have a lot to think about. You may be after the name of your Band, Brand or Business and if you can get it then that’s ideal. However, the internet’s been around for a while now and quite a lot of the more obvious names are already taken.

If you’re in a Death Metal band you may have some kind Medical or Mythological name but the bad news is that many of these may already be taken by Corporations that specialise in Medical Treatments or Equipment. However, you can get around these things with a few bits of sleight of hand.

• Use a Hyphen: if mydomainname.com is taken think about mydomain-name.com, or my-domain-name.com (bear in mind that visitors need to be aware of the Hyphen when they type in your address so if you verbally inform someone of the Domain Name make sure to stress the Hyphen!)
• If you’re a Band and your name is taken, add ‘band‘ to it. For example, coolnameband.com if coolname.com is already gone
• Initialise: see below…

Your Name Is Your Brand

When choosing your Domain Name, think around the issue. If you have a name that is made up of 3 words, for example, think about picking a name that’s made of the first letter of each word. An example of this is the Band Rain May Fall; they have gone with the initials RMF for most of their branding and their Domain Name makes use of this in this way: rmfband.com. They also make use of one of the other sleight of hand techniques you can use (adding band on to the end of the name).

Be Creative

Be Creative, Inventive but above all be Specific. You need to keep it punchy and on point, your visitors want something that catches the attention and is easy to remember. You can have a long sentence for a Domain Name (I used to have a site many moons ago called isitmeordoeseverythingsuck.com quite long but still easy to remember…)

Buy More Than One

This is obviously budget dependent but if you can at least buy the .com and the .co.uk versions of your Domain Name then you really should. It’s a safety net really. If you choose a Domain Name that is pretty cool for you and what you do and you only buy the .com version then there’s a possibility (quite small, granted) that someone in a rival company or business might buy the name and use it to compete or put something malicious or distasteful up ostensibly under YOUR name.

These are very rare occurrences thankfully but something to mindful of. Buying as many versions as possible also means that you own your Brand online in as many different forms as possible and can market them all in different ways and even countries. Of course, if your budget doesn’t quite stretch to buying all of them just make sure to get the .com and .co.uk ones in the bag. 🙂

Summary

• Do what you can to be as true to your Brand or Business as you can
• Keep it short if possible (there are URL shortening services and you can use QR Codes too but you can’t beat a brief, readable Domain Name
• Get the .com and .co.uk versions of your Domain Name to make sure that you’re covered!
• Remember to cheat if your 1st choice isn’t available. Sometimes it really won’t be.

That’s it really, good luck and happy shopping.