Every great website starts with a great domain name! And that’s not just some generic tagline — it’s a fact!
A domain name is the human-readable address that people enter into their web browser to go to a particular website. Without domain names, you would have to memorize random IP addresses in order to visit any of your favorite websites or apps. Thank goodness for DNS mapping!
Every domain name is made up of two main parts.
The first part of a domain name is the primary name itself, or the unique identifier, which is usually the same name as the business, service, organization, or project.
When choosing this part of your domain name, you’ll want to keep it as simple as you can. Whatever you choose will be the centerpiece of your online branding, marketing, and SEO.
Technically speaking, you can use alpha-numeric characters a-z and 0-9, as well as hyphens (-). It can also be up to 63 characters long. That being said, it is generally best practice to keep it as short as possible, avoid unusual spellings, and avoid using digits and hyphens if and when possible. This can lead to confusion about the spelling or pronunciation of your domain.
One-word domains are particularly powerful, but much harder to come by these days, as so many have already been established years ago. Many people in the business of buying and selling high-end premium domains try for 3 – 5 character domain names, which are also increasingly difficult (and expensive) to acquire.
For most practical site owners though, just focus on something easy to spell, easy to speak, and thereby easy to remember. Two or three short simple words is most common, and fairly ideal. If it is for your existing business name, then your first choices should be rather obvious. If it’s an off-shoot of your main business name, or something completely new, try make sure it’s smart, relevant, rolls off the tongue, or otherwise “has a good ring to it”.
Imagine if you had an opportunity to talk about your online business on a big podcast, or even a traditional AM/FM radio show. Would you be able to simply and clearly state your domain name with no need for clarification?
This is what is often referred to as “the radio test”. If for example, I had chosen the domain mid-city-digital.com I would have to say it as “mid dash city dash digital dot com”. This is cumbersome and confusing, plus it just doesn’t look as good.
Similarly, if a local politician sets up a website like James4Texas.com then in every interview he’d have to clarify that it’s “James ‘the number four’ Texas dot com”. This is a silly and pointless waste of time and energy, yet politicians at all levels continue to do this. It would be better to either use the proper word ‘for’, or just figure out a better primary domain name for their campaign.
However, there may be times when using digits is perfectly acceptable because they are more obviously actual numbers. For example, say a local VFW or American Legion post starts their own site to share information with members, it would be acceptable to have something such as alpost303.org because it’s more obvious that you are saying the actual numbers without having to pause to explain it.
The second part of a domain name is the domain extension, also known as a TLD or Top Level Domain.
The most commonly known domain extension is .com, and is typically what most users will want to acquire for their main website. However, other popular domain extensions include .net and .org. If you are truly serious about your website and your online branding, you should try to acquire your main name with ALL THREE of these primary domain extensions.
There are also hundreds of other extensions to choose from as well. These can be particularly effective for niche services and unique branding opportunities and include extensions such as .biz, .us, .io, .ai, .news, .tech, .club, and many MANY more. (Keep in mind, some extensions such as .gov, .edu and a few others are specifically reserved for governments and other institutions and are not available for most users)
Every extension will be priced differently, and sometimes prices may change. Some extensions may seem surprisingly affordable, while others can be ludicrously expensive (.auto comes to mind). If you have the budget, try to register your main brand name with AS MANY DOMAIN EXTENSIONS AS POSSIBLE. This may require you to use multiple domain registrars, as they don’t all offer the same extensions. However, once acquired, you can use all of these different domain extensions to control the flow to your business in countless ways. You could use certain extensions for lead capture, while others for your primary services. For example, you might have your main content on your .com, with links off to a whole separate membership site on your .net, and an elaborate merch store for the general public on your .shop.
You could also simply redirect them all to point to your main .com for that matter. In the very early stages, many one-person business startups simply direct all of their domains to a one-page bio site, link tree, or just a particular social media account while they’re still building things out. Either way, this is where you can get extremely creative with your online marketing and start making your domain investments work for you.
PRO TIP: When you register your domains, it is strongly recommended that you select the domain privacy/ID Protection add-on during the checkout process. Every domain name is required to have the correct and up-to-date information for the legitimate owner and admin for the underlying domain records. However, this add-on service will mask your private information with the registrar’s white-labeled info, helping you avoid a potential deluge of bot spam and scammers. This service usually costs around $5/year and tends to change a bit from year to year depending on the registrar. Regardless, it is absolutely worth it to guard your personal contact details.
Finally, once you have registered your domain and any variations, don’t forget to renew them! Most domain extensions can be registered for a minimum of 1 year at a time, up to a maximum of 10 years. However, some extensions may require an initial registration of 2 years or more, usually depending on demand or other requirements. In most cases, the more years you register, the more money you can save — sometimes just a little, sometimes quite a lot.
Set your domains to auto-renew so you don’t forget, or otherwise keep a close eye on your calendar! There are domain vultures who will happily scoop up your expired domains and sell them back to you for a profit if you’re not careful. Either way, be sure to work your domain renewals into your yearly schedule and operating costs.
At Mid City Digital we have a wide variety of domain extensions available to register, and we continue to add more regularly!
