Finding the perfect domain name may be a little more difficult than you expect. If you’re smart, you’ll put your domain name on every piece of advertising you create and promote it at every venue you are attending.  With that in mind, there are several things to consider.

1.  Credibility - as described above. Dot COM, NET, and ORG extensions are the most respected.  Keep it legit, go for a name that represents you, your group, your company, or your organization. 

2.  Easy access - your goal in choosing a domain name should be one of easy access for your fans, customers, or cients. Remember the term we mentioned earlier; you want your domain name to be “easily memorable”. 

3. Rankings - when you submit your domain name into search engines, the more easily accessed (or sometimes more common) domain name causes more visiters, which in turn creates a higher ranking.

4. Advertising - will this domain name be easy to advertise, both print and verbally.  There should be no confusion.  Fans, Clients, and Customers should be able to get to yuor address fairly easy after hearing your web address spoken.  In other words, make sure it is easily accessed after hearing it verbally. 

The domain name you choose for your group, ministry, or organization may not be available, which means you may have to get a little creative.  Here’s a few pointers that may help you in choosing the perfect domain name for yourself:

1. If possible use your Group, Company, or Organization name. If your group’s name is No Name Quartet, your number one options should be nonamequartet.com, nonamequartet.org, or nonamequartet.net.  If that’s not possible then use key words such as THEnonamequartet.com, nonamequartetmusic.com, nonamequartetonline.com, etc.

2. When using the words TWO/TO, FOR/FOUR, ARE/OUR, and YOU try to spell out the word rather than using replacements.  (ie. 2 for TWO/TO, 4 for FOR/FOUR, R for ARE/OUR, etc.) This works well for text messaging, but makes it hard to advertise your domain name in spoken word.

3. You are allowed up to 67 characters when choosing your domain name.  However, the shorter the better.  If you had a choice between nonamequartet.com and nonamequartetisnowonline.com your better choice is nonamequartet.com

4. Hyphens should only be used in cases where nothing else is available.  Again, in spoken advertising of your domain name, hyphens can cause confusion.  If you were searching for NO Name Quartet, before going to a search engine, your first instinct would be trying nonamequartet.com and NOT no-name-quartet.com.

5. It would be wise to purchase all COMMON variations of your domain name.  If No Name Quartet is going to purchase nonamequartet.com, they should invest in purchasing nonamequartet.net and nonamequartet.org as well.  A lot of times, if variations aren’t purchased, some porn or gambling sites will purchase the domain names which will cause quite an embarrassment to your Fans, Clients, or Customers if they accidentally type in the wrong extension.

We advise getting a piece of paper out and start thinking.  (You’ll find we do this quite often for almost any situation) Grab someone else to help!  Two minds are always better than one.  Write some ideas for your domain name using the tips we provided above. 

Now, When purchasing a domain name it is important that you don’t purchase other stuff that you won’t be using.  Some Domain Name Registrars offer products or services for extra costs that your Hosting company can usually provide for NO extra costs.  For example, some Registrars offer Email Accounts, Site Builders, Shopping Carts, etc. There’s no need to purchase other items from a domain name registrar if your hosting company will provide it.  If you later find out that your hosting company does not provide something that your Registrar does, you can add it later. 

You also want to look at pricing.  If you find a domain name that costs more than $20.00 per year you are paying way too much.  Unless the domain name is owned by someone else and you are desperate to purchase that certain domain name, paying over $20.00 per year is not worth the expense.  Remember, again, to make sure that you are not adding anything extra to your domain name purchase.  Some registrars automatically check boxes for items you may not want, so always double check your total when you are at the check out.

If you are using a designer, we recommend that you allow them to set up your domain name and hosting.  IT’s a more personalized service, and they will know what they can offer you and what they need to purchase through the domain registrar company. 

Usually a designer will include the purchase of the domain name in their agreement.  Make sure before signing the agreement you know how much the renewal of the domain name will be for the years following. 

Some domain name registrars we recommend are:

GoDaddy.com
000domains.com
domaindirect.com

Never knew there could be so much in simply finding a domain name?  Check back soon for more updates!

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