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The first step in creating a website for your business is to choose the right domain name. Domain name is the human readable address of your website. Each domain name has two parts. The first part can be a combination of letters and numbers and should be 3 to 63 characters long. Hyphens are allowed in the first part of the domain name other than as the first and the last character. Domain names are not case-sensitive and so they are all treated as lower-case letters. The second part of the domain name is the extension. These extensions relate to locations, concepts or industries. There are also generic extensions like “.com”. Few extensions have some restrictions, for example, .gov.in can only be registered by an Indian Government agency.

Right domain name for your business

Choosing the right domain name is important to your business because domain name gives you a professional branding and is the first thing anyone would notice online. The right domain name can also establish your rights to your trademarks and prevent other businesses from using your trademarks. Ideally, you’d consider the following while choosing the right domain name for your business.

1. A name that is easy to remember
   • Prefer a domain name that is memorable and short. Longer names are not only difficult to remember but also difficult to type.
2. A name that reinforces your brand
   • If possible, try and make sure your brand name is incorporated into your domain name. It helps the user remember the brand.
3. The name of your company or product
   • In some cases, you might want to consider having your company name or your product name as your domain name.
4. Different names for each of your brands
   • If you are a business dealing with several brands, optionally, you’d want to consider using one domain name for each brand.
5. Domain names with several extensions
   • Domain names with several extensions help you in situations where you want to keep the website/data individually and separated from each department. For example, you could have .com for the main website, .net for emails, .info for your articles, etc.
6. Possible mis-spellings as your domain names
   • If your brand or company is often subject to mis-spelling, you could consider having one domain name with the name as it would be mis-spelt and then have those users redirected to the domain name with the correct spelling.
7. Use of broad keywords in the domain name
   • Although using keywords in your domain name doesn’t directly help you with getting on the first page of Google, it does have a positive impact and is recommended when you don’t want to keep your domain name branded with your company name, products, etc.
8. Avoid hyphens if possible
   • Hyphens are not dangerous, but good if it’s possible to avoid. Keeps your domain name clean.