Picking the perfect domain name
Your domain name (also known as a web address or URL) is the www. bit that you use whenever you are telling people the name of your business online. Our domain name is www.benchmarkwebdesign.co.uk This works for us because our trading name also clearly states what we do. Your domain name doesn’t have to be your business name though. You can use your domain name to highlight your product or service (B&Q’s web address is www.diy.com), or the geographic location of your business. For example…
Your business is called A Farmer & Son and you are launching an online shop selling farmhouse scrumpy cider (no excuses, we’re from Somerset). Rather than set up your eCommerce website with the domain name www.afarmer.co.uk, you would be better off calling your web business “Somerset Cider Online” and having the domain www.somersetcideronline.co.uk This makes it obvious what you do and can improve your profile and Search Engine Optimisation.
(At the time of writing, somersetcideronline.co.uk is available if anyone is interested. And we wouldn’t mind a gallon or two for the tip!)
Get it right first time…
Domain names are easy to buy, and relatively cheap. But picking the right domain name is extremely important and changing it later can be costly. Think about this early on. It’s frustrating coming up with the perfect online identity for your business, only to find that the appropriate domain name is unavailable.
Dot what?
Traditionally, domain names ended with the suffix .com, or .co.uk for UK businesses. Although more and more suffixes have been released (for example .net, .shop and .space), our preference is always for .co.uk In fact, we would go so far as to say that if you are trading within the UK and your chosen domain name isn’t available as .co.uk, have a bit of a rethink. It may mean that someone is already trading online under the same name. Even if this isn’t the case, in our experience most potential customers find a .co.uk web address reassuring, and this will encourage them to do business with you.
You can check whether the name you want is available through a variety of websites – we tend to use www.123-reg.co.uk
If you feel confident enough to sort out buying a domain name – great. But if you need some help or advice, just give us a call.