Being a fan of Smashing Magazine, another recent post of their’s has caught my eye… The Effective Strategy For Choosing Right Domain Names. This is a great post that covers many of the details that are easily forgotten.
New and existing businesses wanting an online presence often ‘want a domain and a website’. So its put on a list, some costs drawn from a web designers website and its onto the next thing. A designer is comissioned and the talk about hosting and the domain name comes up. Lo and behold, ABC.com is taken, so is .co.uk and .net, .org won’t work, and .me .info and .biz are hardly suitable… so its back to the drawing board.
The post above covers most if not all of the considerations for a domain name. For me I use the example of 2nlight.net, my first ‘portfolio’ website. I thought it was a great name… enlight, too enlight, well isnt that cool (and looking back not a light smacking of pretentiousness). In my head I thought it was snappy, different and memorable, I mean what was wrong with it. A lot on reflection…
I call it the ‘telephone test’. How easy is it to relay your website address over the phone? 2nlight was a pain, having to ‘explain’ the 2, “no the number 2, no not t-w-o, 2 then enlight, no not e-nlight, just n-light, no not lite, light as in lightbulb”… You get the idea. A more familiar scenario is having a surname spelt with two o’s… oh the joy of returning bank cards and correcting forms. Surnames aside, which tends to stick after a while, domains do need thought and planning to get right.
Going through spelling when meeting a contact for a few moments is a turn off. Trying to show people how ‘clever’ you are with a cool domain name is a big turn off. And even a second website entitled ‘Furrypeach’, trying obtain a new brand didnt work, perhaps less for the spelling, more of the ‘smack of the student’ one designer told me.
Your domain needs to be different and memorable. Consider your competitors, would replacing jones-limited.co.uk with secondhandfurniture.com help set you apart? Have you checked variations of available domains, would people landing on .com be confused when looking for your .co.uk website.
Is .com for you, or do you want the sense of being a UK company for your market? Are you an organisation or would .net be sufficiently generic for your needs? Fashions change, pick a domain that you can live with today, and tomorrow!
