If you’re thinking about launching a commercial website (or any website, really) think carefully about what you choose for your domain name.  This may seem obvious, but a lot of people breeze past the domain name selection process without much consideration.  Here’s the truth: your domain name can affect your success in many different ways.

These days, more and more big businesses function purely online (Monster.com, GoDaddy.com, Ebay, etc.).  Go through and look at big commercial sites, and you’ll see that their domain names have a few things in common.  They’re memorable.  They’re short.  They’re not obvious.  There’s nothing about Monsters that has to do with jobs, and Daddies aren’t the first thing you’d associate with buying a domain name.

For these companies, brevity and “memorableness” works, becuase they aggressively market themselves (Super Bowl ads, anyone?).

Translated into the small to mid-size business world, the “short, sweet and memorable” tactic needs to be changed a bit.  Including your business’ function in your domain name (some fake examples: bobsclassiccars.com…thegardeningexpert.com) can be very helpful, especially when you’re gunning for search engine rankings.  Search engines appreciate it when your url itself is a search keyword.

However, it really is best not to throw brevity out the window for the sake of search engines.  You want something that people will recognize too, that they’ll remember and won’t need to write down.  You’ll want to reflect what your business is, and what it does, but not get out of hand and use a url longer than the waiting line for opening day at Krispy Kreme.

So take your time, think things through and select a domain name that boosts your chances for success.

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