by David B Hitchcock

Created on: May 14, 2009   Last Updated: May 18, 2009

Tips on choosing a domain name for your home business

6 tips on choosing a domain name

Choosing a domain name for a business, any business, can be as important as choosing the business name itself. In fact, it's a good idea to decide on a domain name before you register your business name to ensure you can get the name you want.

Why is a domain name important?

A domain name is the name of your company's website; like a street address, it is how people will find your business. Home based businesses in particular do a lot of work on the Internet due to low costs and the potentially vast market. For this reason you need a good domain name to help customers find you easier.

What makes a good domain name?

A good domain name is very much like a good name for a business. Can you think of some really bad business names you've seen? The worst is the numbered company - it's impossible to remember, and has no meaning attached to it. Even worse, people associate that with underhanded deals.

A long name that's hard to remember or spell will make it hard for customers to get to your website and place those orders. Think of your favorite websites - google.com, facebook.com, youtube.com. They all are short, easy to spell, and easy to remember names.

Do not stray from .com or .net

Do you ever visit a .ca or an .au website? These are country specific websites, and normally people never go to them knowingly. When you give someone a domain name of a website, they automatically assume it will end in .com or possibly .net. Anything else will not register in their memory. This is because .com are the official commercial website domain names. However, if you have a really good domain name but the .com is already taken, you can go with the .net and be reasonably assured that people will find your website without many problems. But what is that company with the .com, and are they your competitor? Hmm...

Do not even consider free web hosting

Have you seen ads on the Internet for free web hosting? That is when someone offers you a place to put your website for free instead of the $10-20 a month you might normally pay. While the savings are nice, how can they offer this? It's done through placing ads on your website. You can't control these ads, or what they are advertising - it might be exotic dancers or even your competitors! When you add to that the number of spammers that use free hosting and the long complicated domain name you will end up with for your website address,

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