| Brief Guide to Domain Names |
| A good Internet domain name is vital for every business that is serious about getting customers and serious about its image. This free guide is intended to help you to choose and acquire the best possible domain name(s) for your business. |
| This guide is a public domain document and anyone is free to quote it or to copy it in whole or in part or to link to it as long as they credit the original source. However, as with other open source documents, anyone using this document as a basis for a domain name guide implicitly agrees that their document in turn may be quoted on the same basis. |
| What is a domain name? |
A domain name is an Internet address, which is used for two quite different purposes:
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| There are a large number fo different suffixes (ie domain name endings) which can be divided into two categories - "country codes" and "top level" domain names. Examples of top level domain names would be .com or .net or .org. Examples of country codes would be .co.uk or .co.jp. Within these country codes you can have different suffixes so that the UK has .co.uk, .gov.uk, .org.uk and several others. |
| Whatever the name it is almost always registered through your ISP (Internet Service Provider) who registers top level domain names with an international body and .uk names with the UK authority Nominet, based in Oxford, |
| Generic terms are those such as smile.co.uk, egg.co.uk, taste.co.uk or house.co.uk which no one has a trademark-type claim over. These names can be especially attractive in that they are easy to remember and they get a certain amount of "on spec" visits ("traffic"). |
| Why does it matter what domain name you choose? |
| A memorable domain name will generate visits to your website, and reduce the number of emails intended for you but misaddressed and hence lost to you. In business, missed traffic means lost income. Put another way, a good domain name will earn you money. |
| Apart from generating traffic, a good domain name is a way of saying positive things about your organisation. If your company wants to be the best in its field you will not convey that by using a second-best suffix, like .ltd.uk. If your company is a company like Waitrose, operating almost exclusively in the UK, then using the domain name waitrose.com with the dotcom suffix conveys a pretension to being an international company that can only harm the business (unless, or course, it really is international). |
| An example of a great domain name is: bbc.co.uk. It is short, it is very recognisably linked to the broadcasting organisation that existed before the internet, and it has the ending (.co.uk) which shows that it is serious about business in the UK. |
| What sort of domain names have been successful? |
Almost all the successful names have been short, memorable and have the appropriate suffix. Here are some examples:
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| What should you avoid in choosing a name? |
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| What should I do if my company is already using a poor domain name? |
| Change it! The sooner you do so the sooner your business will reap the benefits of a good domain name. Domain names are not going away and are rapidly becoming much more important for most businesses. You can easily have both the (lousy) old name and the (great) new one running together for a while for your website and email, so that the costs of switching are not nearly as high as they might seem. |
| What process would be best for choosing the best domain name? |
| Brainstorming with senior people is better than leaving a junior to decide without consultation. Many companies go through a process where they list out the possibilities. The next stage is to rule out unsuitable ones and then see which on the list of desirables is available to register or to buy from an existing holder. |
| Once I've decided on a few names that would do well for the business, what should I do? |
| Find out which, if any, are available to register. If none are, you can find out who the owners for names ending .uk by typing in the name into the website at www.nic.uk. For .com names there are various sites but you can easily check at www.netsol.com You could then see if the name is in use by typing it into your browser. If it is registered it might well be for sale and it's worth at least asking the owner for a price/quote to buy the name. |
| Once we've got our great domain name, what tips can you give that will help us to promote it more effectively? |
| Use colour and typestyle to make the most important bit stand out. For example: www.bbc.co.uk |
| Put it on everything! Don't allow any print or promotional stuff to be produced without your domain name on it. Consider changing the company name to the website address. This has some surprising results. Iceland.co.uk have found that their home delivery service is much boosted by the website address being the name of their shops. It also means that in press interviews the interviewer has no alternative when quoting the name of your company but to state also your address for your website and email! |
| Conclusion |
| Think carefully about what domain names would work for you and will be effective for marketing. Then choose the appropriate suffix, make a short list of short and memorable names and go out and try to acquire one or more of these. Don't be immediately put off if a name is registered - see if the current owner will sell the name. Good luck! |
| Comments, copyright and linking |
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