How to Choose a Busines Name and Domain Name

Before you launch your online business to make money on the Internet, you need to choose a business name and register a domain name for your business website. You can choose to name your online business first and then select a domain name that corresponds to your business name.

A quality and effective business name will be:

a) Marketable and can adapt to the different kinds of branding efforts easily.

b) Easy to remembered by your target prospects.

c) Representative of the image your online business is trying to describe.

d) Not infringing on the trademark and copyright of other businesses, companies or websites.

Once you have thinking out a business name and decided to use it for your online business, begin choosing a domain name for your business website. There are several basic considerations when selecting a domain name for your site:

1. The first thing need to think about is what domain name extension you like to use. Dot com(.com), dot net(.net) or you country code(.us, .ca and etc); which one you prefer in your domain name?

2. How long the length of your domain name you want it to be? Short domain names usually are easier to remember and good for offline advertising such as radio advertising, magazine advertising Vinyl/Magnet Car Advertising and so on; where people need to memorize your web address and type in to their web browsers to find your website. But, if your marketing plan is to get traffic solely through online advertising, then you don't have to use a short and easily remembered domain name for your business.

3. Are you going to choose a domain name exactly the same with your company name, or something closely relevant to your business name?

4. Do you need to use hyphens in the domain? If the domain you want to choose has already taken by other people, then you may need to use hyphens. For example: you planned to register a domain named onlinedatingtips.com, but someone has already bought this domain earlier. Your choices now are either use hyphens in your domain name like online-dating-tips.com or think about another domain name.

5. If numbers are essential to your domain name, would you include numbers to your domain or you prefer to have everything be spelled out? Adding a number like '2' or '4'to your domain will help visitors remember your domain name easier but putting a few numbers together can confuse them.

Once you’ve answered those questions about choosing a domain name, it is time to choose and register a domain name for your online business. Here are a few tools that can help you select a domain name:

1. Domain Name Registrars – Web hosting companies usually are domain name registrars also, which mean that you can register and buy a domain name from them. You can conduct a search on a Web hosting company site to see whether your domain name is available. Many registrars have a built-in tool that will suggest closely similar domain names, if your first choice isn’t available. You may think about taking their suggestion if the domain you want to register has been taken by someone earlier.

2. Domain Name Generators – Domain name generators are often free tools found online that can help when selecting a domain name by either adding random suffixes and prefixes to a primary keyword or by combining multiple keywords that you provide, all while searching for available domain names.