Choose a Logical Domain Name.

Businesses:
Check the availability of your business’s name. If your business name is unavailable, think of a phrase that is descriptive of your core business, products or services. When customers think of your business what is the first thing they think of?  www.first-thing-that-comes-to-mind.com.au

Individuals:
Depending on the purpose of your site; an online photo album, journal, general interest or specific cause etc, try to ensure the domain name is the same as the proposed name of the site, or ensure that the domain name is available before getting too attached.

Domain Names can be between 1 and 67 characters (including the “.com” or other extension), this doesn’t mean it’s a very good idea to use them all. How eager would a customer have to be to visit your site if they had to write an essay to find it…

Another disadvantage of long Domain Names is that users may become frustrated by several incorrect attempts to type the URL correctly, or they may just decide not to visit the site.

It is even likely that long Domain Names can place a burden on word of mouth advertising. Anyone trying to recommend visiting your site to a friend will also have to double check that it was taken in correctly, because if not, your site wont receive a hit.

Word of mouth promotion is a highly effective marketing advantage. It holds the highest credibility when coming from a trusted source, the last thing any business owner wants is to lose or discourage a potential customer.

Check to see if there are any existing sites close to your Domain Name. Some spelling mistakes may occur, resulting in your customer ending up at a competitors or a completely unrelated site. Some people rely on such errors occurring to direct extra traffic to their site.

Initials and Hyphens “-“

As with long Domain Names, Initials can sometimes be tricky to remember, prone to misspelling, and even cause some confusion. An alternative, to initials, is hyphenation. Using hyphens to break up words in your Domain Name adds clarity to what is being typed.

When learning to read each word is analysed and broken up to be sounded out. Once literacy is achieved words are no longer broken down into characters or sounds, they are simply recognized, one word at a time, take the spaces out from in between words and there can be some confusion as to where one word starts and another ends. e.g. www.yourdomainname.com vs. www.your-domain-name.com

Unfortunately, Hyphens make your domain name longer, and can also be completely forgotten. When verbalizing the name of the website the hyphens aren’t included, it must be remembered to specifically point out the hyphens, or they could be misplaced.

With hyphens, users don’t have to look twice to read what your domain name is in search engine results. e.g. www.thesewordsallblendintoone.com.au - It takes sometime to realize that this says “these words all blend into one”.

Another thing to consider is, a search for any two words e.g. “pizza dough” and a search for the same words, with nothing to distinguish that it is more than one word e.g. “pizzadough” will produce two different sets of results. Words are more often entered into a search engine with a space between them. Consider Search Engine results placement before registering your domain.