Outside of the decision to start your company, choosing a name can be the second most important business decision you’ll make. Once you put your business online, you’ll have to choose another name- your domain name. A domain name is the name or address of a website, it’s what comes right after the www. and is what people will use to find your website. Your domain name is crucial because it serves so many purposes. It’s prime marketing real estate and serves as marketing, branding, and visibility all in one. Your domain name is associated with your business and credibility, so you’ll want to make sure you consider all of the elements that go into choosing a good one.

Here are a few tips that we use at CarCareCONNECT, to help clients decide on a domain name for their new website:

• Choose a name closely associated with the name of your business if your exact business name is already taken. That might seem like a given, but it is one of the most often overlooked elements in choosing the perfect domain name.
• Use top keywords in your domain name when possible. Not everyone will know to search for “Joe’s Automotive” but they are likely to search “car repair” so including “car repair” in your domain name might be the perfect solution.
• Make your domain name unique. Nothing spells marketing disaster worse than having a domain similar to that of a competitor. Research the domain names of your competition and make yours stands out.
• Keep it short. Try not to go too exceed 15 characters.
• Make it easy to type. Avoid complicated or unusual spellings- it makes it that much harder for someone to find your website, and consumers won’t keep trying if they can’t find it after a few times. They’ll just move on to a competitor.
• Don’t use hyphens or special characters. Hyphens make the name hard to type and remember. See our previous tip.
• Make it easy to remember. Not everyone will find you by searching. If your domain name is easy to remember, your loyal customers will tell others where to look you up to find more information.
• Avoid copyright infringement. You can make sure your name available and not protected by checking out copyright.gov for more information.

Choosing a domain name for your business is just as important as choosing the actual business name. Use just as much strategy and you’ll choose the one that meets your marketing and branding needs.