Many people who wanted to start a blog or website ask me about how to find a good domain name. Domain name is basically the main pillar of any website. It is as important as your name and a business name that create the first impression about your content. So it needs to be researched well aligned with your content. More, I always recommend my clients that it should be easy to call and memorize.

Determine a good domain name or business name require market knowledge and people demand and interest. By saying this, I don’t want to say to use an exact match keyword based name that people mostly search because Google penalizes to these names.

In this post, we will discuss the Importance of Domain name and how can we choose a good domain name when many good names have been taken.

1) Understand the Importance of Good Domain Name

In my previous article, I discussed business names in the same way domain is the well-defined form of your business name. It’s like the digital address of your business. In real-time, mostly business searched through search engine so you can understand the importance of domain name or URL.

Good domain name builds the reputation of your business also adds credibility about your service and product. In simple words, it helps to create brands.

2) Focus on Attributes to Create Good Domain Name

  1. It should be professional, elegant and classy as per your business concept
  2. Fully represent a tone of your business
  3. Must have good market reputation
  4. The name should not be blacklisted
  5. If it’s a combination keyword then it must describe the business in first glance like someone started Italian coffee then name could be Italian coffee shop.
  6. It should be simple
  7. Easy to call
  8. Memorable
  9. Comprehensive and understand
  10. Must be intuitive
  11. Short names always create market attention that’s why Brandable names are so trendy. In above example of Italian coffee shop, the name could be brandable like Coffian and tagline could be a Best Italian coffee shop.
  12. In my personal opinion, long tail domain names can bring traffic but it’s not professional to brand a business name with long tail keywords.
  13. There should not be a special character like hyphen (-) or numbers in your domain name until or unless it’s valid or creates market demand.
  14. It should not be a registered trademark
  15. No doubt the domain age is important to rank your content on a search engine but don’t follow it to get it.

To draft a good domain name, you need to make a choice in two types of names:

  • Keyword based names: Keyword based names are the combination of words. Like; Tech Crunch, pro blogger, The next web, Quick Sprout
  • Brand names: Brand names specifically design by word artist after listening to the business concept like Houzz, Dribbble, Etsy, Amazon, Forbes, Skype, Dillenium.

Here is the video presentation of Rand Fishkin who recently wrote in Moz post about the domain name. Let’s note down what he says;

Now the next phase is to decide the domain TLD and root.

3) Carefully Choose Domain TLD? (.com, .net or others)

It’s important to determine your domain TLD (Top level domain) like if you are going to start a business in a specific region then your domain should be pointed to the specific country.

Let’s take an example:

Emma wants to open a fashion outlet in Melbourne and interested in selling product within Australian territory so the domain should point to .com.au

After getting business leads, she can expand and start a global presence so she need a domain with .com

You can acquire one domain with different TLD.

.com TLD is always a top choice domain in terms of value.

Let’s focus how to get good domain name

4) List out Possible Domain Related to Business

Now find the way to get a good name in little time.

The first step is to think about your business plan and take out some primary keywords of your business. Like some starting Online food business so the main keyword should be food and online. Now research this concept in more details.

How to do the Research?

Google is the best tool to do the research it will provide each and every information about your keyword like;

  • You can find the worth of your business concept.
  • Existing business on the same concept,
  • Existing domain name of the same business plan.

Make sure, your name should be unique and distinguishable among your competitors.

Now make a checklist of words that came up in your mind after doing the research and noting down the above do’s and don’ts.

At least write 30-50 words in your list.

5) Check the Availability of Domain Name

To check availability, you can go to any hosting site and write the word with choose TLD in the search area. Make a search and you will get the result.

Result criteria based on available domain or premium domain.

Let’s take a case:

Go to www.namecheap.com

In search bar write the word with TLD like below picture

good domain name

So the name is not available to acquire but you can make an offer as somebody take this domain and interested to sell. By exploring Whois, you can find the buy now option or make a bid for the name.

So find availability of all names. You can make custom choices by adding keywords if you have a hard time in finding names.

Choose the best one in your list and register it as soon as possible until someone else gets it.

6) Follow Steps to Register Free Domain Name

The best option to register a free domain name is to add in your hosting plan. Like; Bluehost offer free domain name. I am a trusted buyer of Bluehost because of their uninterrupted and quality service with technical support.

Here you can get through the Bluehost hosting plan for your blog and register your free domain with your hosting package.

Otherwise, you can check my blog post on ‘Choose Best Hosting for Your Website/Blog”.

By using above steps, you can find a good domain name for your business and able to register it in no time. You can let me know through comments if you have any question to get name about your business with the available domain.