You’ve assembled your team, picked a killer name, and designed a fabulous logo. Everything is in place until…thud, you find out someone else has cruelly registered the domain on your name before you had the chance to!
Fear not. The internet is awash with solutions to the problem of finding the right domain name, and this is a particularly informative place to start. In this blog post, we’ll outline top tips and tools you’ll need to get your website up and running in no time.
Great Tools To Find The Perfect Domain
The first step in finding the right domain name is to figure out what’s available. There are hundreds of websites that make this possible, but we’ve chosen a few in particular for their unusual strengths:
When you need a creative push: Panabee lets you search for available domain names, but if your name is taken it will give you suggestions as to alternatives.
When you want a remix: Bust A Name created a linguistic algorithm to combine your various domain search queries with a mix-and-match of other possible names. Bust A Name lets you kill two birds with one stone, too: they also help you to manage your domain.
The most secure: With SSL encryption, Domize has made its name as the among the most secure domain search tools out there, so that you can find your domain name privately.
The fastest: There are many, many domain search websites that offer “while you type” domain availability, but Instant Domain Search is one of the most popular.
The junkyard: Old Domains is a bit like going to a flea market. It lists expired domains so that you can claim what should’ve been yours all along.
Hot Professional Tips To Register a Great Domain
Make Your Name Memorable
Ask a thousand online businesses, and they’ll tell you a thousand different ways to make your name stick out. At the end of the day, the best way to find out if your name is easy to remember is with the 3 T’s:
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TELL: Speak your name out-loud and use it in conversation. Is it difficult to roll off the tongue? Do you mix it up with other names?
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TYPE: Using colloquial language like “u” as opposed to “you” may seem like a great idea at the time, but unfamiliar users or word-of-mouth traffic might have a hard time recalling your novel spelling if they’re typing your domain name straight into their browser.
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TRY: Ask colleagues and friends to try out your domain name both by speaking and typing it, then be sure to jot down their helpful criticism. Getting some distance from your own business is essential to finding a name that sticks.
Stay Visual
Make sure to keep your domain name straightforward and utilitarian by using keywords to instantly explain what you offer. Product designer Jack Makin wanted to draw attention to his made-to-measure service (from product design to photography) when he was building his website with IM Creator, and chose www.makinbespoke.com as his domain instead of the more obvious www.jackmakin.com. The “bespoke” element of his domain and the strong visuals he uses on his landing page help potential users quickly associate his work with client versatility.
Keep it Short
Simple, short, and to the point domain names help users remember who you are and how to find you. In keeping with our words of advice, we’ll leave it at that.
Have Fun with Your TLD
A top-level domain (or TLD) refers to the last part of your domain name, after the last dot. As the internet grows, so does the scarcity of a good old .com TLD’s. Alternatives like .biz, .info, or .net abound, but are often racked with unsettling cultural associations (.biz, for example, is frequently misconstrued by users as spam). While SEO Moz’s Rand Fiskin suggests that any serious business should stick to .com and .com only, there are some back-roads to be travelled.
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If your website’s name + .com has been taken, try making the last two letters of your name into your TLD. Tech-savvy, playful websites like visual.ly are using this technique to outsmart the .com hegemony. This strategy can be especially useful if you want to make a person’s name into a domain.
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Meanwhile, if your business is primarily local or you want to associate it with the country you operate in, country-specific TLD’s are often more available and are readily trusted by users.
Found the right domain name. Now what?
You found the perfect domain for your new website? Super! Now go ahead and attach it to your new IM Creator website. Don’t have a website yet? Not a problem! Go to our website builder and create yourself a website in just 5 minutes.
Image Credit: Saleeha Bamjee, Flickr Creative Commons.
